April 29, 2025 • 33 mins
Today, we're diving deep into the nitty-gritty of what makes a financial planner the "real deal." Our special series guest, Jeff Chase, VP of Financial Planning and Senior Wealth Manager at S.E.E.D. Planning Group is back with us, and together we're about to drop some insights that’ll help you see through all the shiny sales pitches out there.
We’re breaking down the art of financial planning and why it’s not just about throwing money at investments and calling it a day. Instead, it’s about crafting a tailored strategy that considers everything from taxes to healthcare, ensuring your financial future isn’t left to chance.
If you’re tired of cookie-cutter advice and pushy sales professionals and want to understand how to get the most out of your money, stick around because this episode is packed with insights that could change your financial game!
Takeaways:
- In financial planning, knowing your goals is key; without it, you're just guessing.
- A solid financial plan should dictate your investments, not the other way around, folks.
- Meeting with clients regularly is essential; it's not just about selling products, it's about relationships.
- Solo practitioners in finance face unique risks, so having a team can be a game changer for clients.
- Understanding risk is crucial; sometimes being conservative can protect you better than chasing high returns.
- Navigating the world of financial products requires a keen eye to avoid unnecessary fees and pitfalls.
About Jeff
Jeff is the Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, a fee-only financial firm committed to acting in its clients' best interests as a fiduciary.
He joined S.E.E.D. in 2020 and is a key member of the firm's leadership team. He currently oversees and leads the financial planning team, which consists of nine financial planners and wealth managers.
🅿️ For more DTS content check out our Patreon
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
You can get Ditch the Suits highlights, and other great content produced by NQR Media at https://youtube.com/@NQRMedia
📧 For more information or to get in touch with us, visit https://www.ditchthesuits.com
👍🏼 You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @nqrmedia
About Your Host:
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.
Mark as Played
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.
(00:21):
All right, Steve, we're onepisode three of our four part miniseries
with our, our senior VP offinancial planning, Jeff Chase is
in the studio today with usand he is digging into the art of
being a real deal financialplanner or wealth manager, not just
(00:41):
a so called advisor.
And he shared with us hisstory through the industry.
I love this because I think,you know, we talk about our story
all the time, but maybe we'rejust unicorns.
And here's Jeff, anotherperson who's walked a very similar
path, ended up in the sameplace thinking, you know, there's
gotta be a better way to do this.
Now how do we build thatbetter way to do this?
(01:02):
And you know, if you hear frompeople who are trying to figure out
how to do it better, I thinkit helps point out the things that
you kind of ought to befocused on as a consumer.
So this is pretty exciting.
We've, we've, we've coveredkind of who Jeff is.
In our first episode of this,our second one, we, our last episode,
we talked a lot about hisexperience in the industry and working
(01:25):
with some clients.
Today we're going to shift alittle bit and talk about his day
job and some of the, some ofthe things that, you know, he kind
of just some of hisobservations that I think are pretty
interesting and intriguing.
So we're going to let Jeff getinto that.
(01:46):
But first, Steve.
Yeah.
Welcome into Ditch the Suits.
I'm Steve Campbell, seniormarketing director at Seed Planning
Group.
This is Travis Most, our cohost and chief executive officer.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm and Ditch the Suits
is all about us bringing ourexperiences in the day to day to
help empower you to get themost from your money in life.
Hey guys.
Steve Campbell, one of the cohosts here on Ditch to Suits, want
(02:08):
to take one quick moment totell you about something that's near
and dear to my heart.
This is my very own podcastcalled the One Big Thing.
On the One Big Thing, Iwelcome guests from all walks of
life.
We take about 30 minutes tohelp share their story and really
culminate around this one bigthing that they want to let all of
you know.
As a listener.
These are going to bepractical ideas and ways of looking
at life that you can implementto become the best version of yourself.
(02:29):
On the One Big Thing we wantto help you overcome the challenges
that are holding you back.
So if you'd like a good, feelgood story that helps you overcome
challenges, check out the OneBig Thing, which is available on
all major podcast platforms.
Now let's get back to the show.
All right, Jeff, welcome back.
You're not running and screaming.
Still here.
Hanging in here.
(02:50):
This is good.
You're our third guest thathas not quit halfway through the
show.
So this is good.
It's good.
I mean, we've never had theright halfway through the show, but,
you know, we're.
We're figuring this out thesame as everybody else is.
So welcome back.
Let's talk about today.
I want to talk about seedsapproach to financial planning.
Because I've interviewedsomebody in the past is like, yeah,
(03:11):
I do financial planning.
I'm like, tell me about yourfinancial planning.
And he's like, yeah, we have,like, two meetings.
And I'm like, how much timedoes it take?
He's like, it's about an eighthour, eight hours total.
We.
We deliver a financial plan.
I'm like, what happens next?
Then we sell them life insurance.
I'm like, okay, we're not evenin the same world.
Like, we can't talk.
I can't talk to you.
You don't know.
You don't.
You think that you're like,I've met people.
(03:31):
I do what you do.
Yeah, tell me exactly what I do.
And then, you know, you know,they give you kind of the generic,
and it's like, look, there'ssomewhere between 8 hours and 32
hours, something's happeningfor that client or not happening
in your case.
What's the difference here?
There's gotta be somethingthat's happening in there, you know,
or this.
(03:52):
You know, I've talked to people.
I have 500 financial planning clients.
Really?
How many of them do youfinancial Planning for?
All 500.
How often do you meet with them?
Every year.
There's not enough meetings inthe week to do.
I can attest to that.
You know, you get more thanyou know.
When our planners get up toseven or eight financial planning
meetings a week, whether it'snew clients or reviews with clients,
(04:13):
that's a lot of work.
That is a large workload.
And so.
And we try to meet with ourclients anywhere from one to four
times a year.
And if there's things going onin their lives that are unique, it
might even be more, butsomething different is happening
than if it takes 18 hours ayear to take care of a client and
(04:36):
you've got 500 clients, youdon't have enough time to do all
that work.
So what's the deal here?
You know what I'm saying?
So talk to us about Seed'sapproach to financial planning, which
is literally your job.
You are the gatekeeper offinancial planning at Seed.
Yeah, yeah.
Something I'm very, you know,passionate about, grateful for.
(04:57):
Absolutely.
So, you know, really what wedo, again, our approach to financial
planning, I guess let's start.
There is real, straightforwardadvice, right, for clients.
No gimmicks, no selling products.
Kind of like we've beentalking about the last two episodes.
It's planning that includesall the essential services.
It's not just investments, right?
(05:19):
Investments is part of the deal.
It's not the most importantthing, right.
There's other things that haveto go on there.
There's tax planning, there'shealth care planning, there's estate
planning, there's looking atrisk management.
That's our day job, right?
So when you talk about, youknow, somebody having 500 clients,
that's physically impossiblefor you to be able to do financial
planning.
So once we get up to, youknow, you know, we have a number
(05:42):
of clients where we feel likethat's, that's the max for a planner,
for them to be able toactually do their job without us
sacrificing the client experience.
And that's a no go for us, right?
We're not going there.
We're never going to sacrificethe client experience.
But what we do is we bringpeople through a process, really
a tried and true process thatwe've done thousands of times.
(06:04):
And when I say that, I don'tmean that we're taking you through
some cookie cutter processthat, you know, your neighbor went
through.
That's not what it is.
It's.
The framework is there, right?
The framework is there becausewe know it works.
But everything we do from afinancial planning process is customized
to each client that comes inin their specific situation.
So I guess we'll start fromthe beginning, right?
(06:26):
When you engage with us.
We've talked in our previousepisode about the opening meeting,
right?
We have a conversation withyou, we get to know you, we get to
know about your goals, right?
That's, you know, nothing revolutionary.
I think most places probablydo some form of that, right?
But when we get you in hereand you actually decide, hey, you
know what, this sounds good.
(06:46):
Seed is a good fit for me.
I'm engage with Seed.
You're a good fit for Seed.
And we, we onboard you, wetake you through a very specific
process, right?
So there's a series of initialplanning meetings that we take you
through and those meetings arespaced about two to three weeks apart.
And there's a specific reasonfor that.
The reason we do that isbecause there's a lot of information,
(07:08):
a whole lot more than what,however many hours you said 18 hours
that goes into financialplanning in a year, right.
We'll take you through.
Your first meeting is probablygoing to be based around a making
sure that we have a goodhandle on your situation up front.
Right.
Taking a look at forwardlooking projections for some clients.
That might be Social Securitytiming, that might be pension selection,
(07:30):
that might be income sourcingor you know, an intro into tax planning.
Once we have that solidbaseline, we'll get you into investment
planning.
Right.
And we do investment planningsecond for a very specific reason.
Most people, and I notice mostfirms, let the investments dictate
everything else.
(07:51):
That is completely backwards.
The financial planning shoulddictate what the investments look
like.
So we start with the planning,then we move on to investment planning.
That's where we're going to doa deep dive into what you have, what
our recommendations are,getting things in the right places
and then we move on to risk management.
Right.
So that could be a number ofdifferent things.
(08:11):
But for example, that maybethat's insurance planning.
Right.
Maybe that's taking a look atwhat happens if there's unfortunate
events in your life that occur.
Is that going to take yourplan off course?
And then we'll get into estateplanning after that to kind of close
the loop on that initialseries of planning.
That's just when someone comesto us and that's the general framework.
(08:34):
That's not the same for everysingle client.
Right.
There might be additionalmeetings or additional conversations
in there, depending on whatyour situation is.
But then we get you into areview meeting schedule.
And it's not just you come inonce a year and we review your investments.
Now we have a very specificprocess that we go through at certain
points in the year.
(08:55):
We talk about certain thingsperiodically throughout the year.
We're doing things in thebackground to make sure that, you
know, there's no holes thataren't plugged, basically.
So that's really our processwhen it comes to financial planning
from a very, very high level.
(09:16):
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
the suits and subscribe to our channel.
You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditchesuits or head to our show Notes
(09:38):
where we got links to our channel.
And I can speak to theorigination of that process when
seed was first started.
So this predates your time.
I know that you've got lesshair than me, but I'm still older
than you.
So.
But if we go back to the.
The origination of thefinancial planning process that we
(10:02):
use, my observation was everytime that we did the planning out
of order, the clients had meltdowns.
We had major, major clientissues with.
They'd be frustrated.
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing that?
They didn't have the body of knowledge.
When you're talking about theway that you're doing financial planning
(10:25):
is you are building aknowledge foundation.
Let me give you theinformation that you're going to
need to more advanced conceptsbefore we get to the more advanced
concepts.
Instead of getting to theadvanced concepts and saying now
let's go all the way back andteach you the basics.
So you start with the basics.
This is how kind of life looksand how it's projecting based on
(10:45):
what you've told us does.
Is that true?
Is that kind of what you're thinking?
And then you get into and youknow, here's how.
How you can make some tweaksto those investments to fortify that
or even make it look better.
Right.
Maybe it's not getting towhere you wanted to go.
Right.
You can, you could tell uswhere you want to go and then we'll
show you where you're headed.
(11:06):
And then you could say, well,geez, I like that or I don't.
And then we can show you howto make it even better, you know,
or if you want to do things,how it might make it worse.
So you walk people throughthat process.
You do the investment planning.
I think you talked about theinvestment planning always comes
after the financial planningbecause the financial plan should
drive the investment plan.
Can you tell share with peoplea good reason why that is so?
(11:33):
Sure.
I'll give you a great example.
That just happened this week.
We had a client come in whonew client.
Right.
We're probably two planningmeetings in at this point.
Came very aggressive with his investments.
Right.
Has always been 100% stocks.
Really I think because verycomfortable that way.
(11:53):
But I also think that, youknow, in.
In his view.
Right.
He thought that that wassomething that was necessary.
Right.
Where he's very concernedwhich is the opposite of most clients
that come in very concernedabout, you know, inflation and outpacing
inflation over time.
And I could tell that therewere things that either he had read
(12:15):
online, right.
Or videos that he had watched,where some of this stuff was coming
from, but always very, very aggressive.
And when we went through theplanning and we had a conversation
around his actual goals, himand his wife, right.
What was retirement going toactually look like?
(12:36):
Right.
They were able to share that.
Right.
And then we were able to talkthrough, okay, well, what do we think
that's actually going to cost?
He had some other goals as well.
Not just fun stuff.
Right.
It's not just, hey, I want togo on vacation or spend more time
with family.
Some char.
Credible interests, A lotgoing on there.
Right.
A bunch of moving parts.
(12:57):
But what we were able to do ishelp him to understand that, hey,
if you can accomplish everysingle goal that you've shared with
us, whether it be you havingfun, you leaving money to your kids,
you doing your charitablegifting and philanthropy, why would
(13:17):
we take more risk than is necessary?
And that statement right thereresonated with them quite a bit.
And they're like, you know what?
That makes perfect sense.
Right?
So we kind of did a 180 on howthey've been investing their whole
lives.
And, you know, we've got themnow in a what we call a moderate
plus portfolio, which is about65% in stocks.
(13:40):
And that's that sweet spotwhere they can do everything they
want to do without worry ofrunning out of money.
We don't have any worry of notoutpacing inflation.
It's kind of the best of bothworlds in that way.
So that's one example that Iwould give you.
Yeah, I think a lot of peopledon't understand that with risk,
(14:02):
there's a sequence of return issue.
And when you're looking at.
Whenever anybody comes in,there's what you need and what you
want, here's what you need,and then here's how you feel about
that.
And sometimes getting riskier,although you can make higher returns,
(14:23):
actually puts you at more riskof a lower output.
And sometimes getting moreconservative, although it can protect
your lower output, can meanyou can't reach your goals.
So there's.
There's a need box there thatyou can draw that you can say, look,
you've gotta be in this box toachieve your goals.
You.
You don't need that much risk.
In fact, that much riskactually puts you at jeopard.
(14:45):
And you also don't.
You can't afford to be that safe.
So you're somewhere in this box.
And maybe the box is between75% stocks and 55% stocks.
Now, how do you feel?
Do you love taking risk or doyou hate risk?
Well, you know, depending onwhere you are on that.
Or are you just really nervousand you're not sleeping at night?
Well, this is as conservativeas you can get and still have a fighting
(15:07):
chance to make your goals right.
Or this is as aggressive asyou can be instead of a fighting
chance to not get, you know,blown up when the market blows up,
that type of thing.
So I think that that's really important.
I had a client one time comein and they were working with an
insurance agent too.
And every time they went tothe insurance, they were the collector
that you were kind ofexplaining in the last episode.
They had four long term carepolicies, three life insurance policies
(15:31):
with long term care riders onthem, and they had just put their
entire life savings in anannuity with a guaranteed income
benefit, which is a fee drain.
So basically I pay you 3.8% ayear in fees, which is roughly probably,
I think what this was.
It was a lot of money in fees.
And you're going to guaranteeme for life that I could take like
a 4 1/2% income stream.
I don't remember all thedetails, I'm just kind of stereotyping
(15:54):
this a little bit.
But I could take a 4 1/2%stream of income as long as I'm alive,
starting like when I'm 70.
Right.
And it was like, okay, soyou're retired already.
Your pension and your SocialSecurity come out to about $120,000
a year.
You've got this half milliondollars in this retirement account
that you've told us you don'tneed that's only going to go to your
kids when you die.
And you just inebriated theupside of your market for fees, basically.
(16:19):
And in New York, the way thedeath benefit works is it's your
cash value or your purchaseprice, whichever is higher.
But the purchase price wouldbe minus any distributions.
So you bought guaranteedincome that you don't need because
you already have a 5,000amonth spread.
You're already putting thatmuch money into savings.
So you bought guaranteedincome for an account that you don't
(16:42):
plan to ever spend.
And the main goal of theaccount is to give it to your kids,
which means you would investit as if your kids are going to use
it in 30 years when they're retiring.
You wouldn't put it in thereand say, I don't want any growth
on this for the next.
Because they can't inherit theincome benefit.
They can only inherit the cashvalue of it.
(17:02):
And that's a perfect exampletoo of I'm collecting products before
I do my financial plan.
Then when we do the financialplan and we tell them that.
Now the problem is thatparticular client, they were extremely
mad with us.
They ended up ending therelationship because we're like,
look, you've had five meetingswith us.
(17:23):
Every meeting you come in,you've got a new insurance product.
This person is literally usingyou to buy cars and boats and houses.
That's you are dinner everytime you show up.
Stop buying stuff.
When you go to them, talk tous first.
You've bought so much longterm care insurance, you can't even
(17:45):
use it all statutorily in the contract.
They will not give you thebenefits because you have all these
other benefits that you canalready claim.
Stop buying more insurance,especially because you don't need
it.
There's nothing anybody cantake from you.
Right.
Like if you go into thenursing home, they can take your
income, but you're single andlive alone and you've already got
money to give to the kids.
Let them take your income.
(18:06):
Exactly.
You know, stop buying, youknow, you can't use $30,000 a month
of long term care benefits.
They won't let you.
It doesn't matter how much ofit you have, they're not gonna let
you use it.
Yeah.
And this is stuff we've run into.
I mean, it's just, it's constant.
Right.
I mean, even with another onethat I think of is just a recent
(18:26):
one where client had a lifeinsurance policy that, you know,
he was, you know, the overfunding.
The life insurance policy.
Oh, yes, right.
I mean, it's like plan, whichis frankly legal.
That's a, that's an industryviolation if you ever hear anybody
say that.
Most and most advisors, right,that I've run into don't really understand
(18:48):
the way that that actually works.
Right.
It's.
It's sold to clients on thisidea of, you know, whatever, creating
your own bank.
Right.
And you can pull money out in the.
The problem with this clientwas he was supposed to be putting
like $32,000 in there, right.
Every year.
He put like 100 grand in thelast two years.
(19:08):
Now it's a mec.
Now he can't pull money.
Right.
So now it's, it's not that hecan't, but it defeats the purpose.
You're referencing themodified endowment contract which
essentially it changed.
Life insurance from aregulatory standpoint, has a purpose.
And when you put too muchmoney in a cash based life insurance
(19:29):
policy, it changes thedefinition of what it is.
So it's no longer lifeinsurance per se, it is now an investment
account.
So now it has different rules, Correct?
Yep.
Yeah.
No, it's.
I, I was sitting with aninsurance agent one time.
Not to get off on anothertangent, but I'm gonna, I'm sitting
down with a life insuranceagent one time and I'm like, you
(19:50):
know the reason why I like youand the reason why I'm okay sending
a client to talk to you isbecause you come right out and say,
I'm an insurance agent.
I said, but you got tounderstand I was a million dollar
roundtable producer.
I sold a lot of insurance.
If you're going to sellgarbage to our clients, I'm going
to know it.
And we will never send youanother client.
No, no, no, man, I will neverdo that.
(20:10):
But have you heard thisstrategy where you put money in a
whole life policy and you pullit out to pay for your kids college
education?
And I just looked at him like,are you desperate or are you an idiot?
How did you not hear what Ijust said to you?
So then there's a client thatI sent to them and everything's an
(20:32):
upsell.
Oh, you better buy this.
Buying disability ridercoverage on your whole life insurance
is astonishing to me.
For an extra 1500 dollars youcan buy insurance on your whole life
policy.
That if you get.
And it's different foreverybody in every policy.
But I remember this particular case.
For $1,500 you could buy ayear, you could buy insurance so
(20:55):
you don't have to pay yourwhole life policy if you get disabled.
You know what you could buyfor $1,500?
A disability policy thatreplaces your damn income so you
could pay all your bills ifyou get disabled, not just your health
or not just your life insurance.
So it's, it's just, it's crazy.
Yeah.
And that's part of, that'spart of the issue with the industry
(21:17):
too.
It's not for the most partwhat I've run into.
It's.
And we've, we've lived it.
Right.
It's not the person, it'swhere they are in the environment
sometimes of what they'rebeing taught to do.
It's an ecosystem, what'savailable to them.
Yeah, that's, that's theunfortunate thing about the business.
So.
Yeah, well, I Think you make agood point.
(21:39):
It's it.
You.
You can't get mad at a sharkfor being a shark.
Maybe you shouldn't swim withcertain sharks.
Correct.
If you don't know how to kindof like not get eaten, you know,
it's.
I love it when people arelike, oh, I don't mind commissions.
And it's like, well, if youdon't mind commissions, you better
know what you're negotiating on.
Well, I think that's the key, right?
(22:00):
If you don't.
That that's exactly what it is.
You got to understand exactlywhat you're getting, Right.
You really need to know if youdon't mind commissions, you got to
know what you're paying for, right.
At the end of the day.
And sometimes there's hidden fees.
Right.
Everybody knows this, but there's.
Even when you call.
Right.
I've heard, we talked.
You talked a little bit abouthearing younger.
Not younger, but our newerplanners on the phone.
(22:21):
Right.
Or in meetings with clients.
You know, sometimes.
I know in the past I've heardconversations where, let's say they
call an annuity company with aclient and they say, okay, you know,
you've got this whatever,annuity, right?
And the planner's on the phonewith a rep from the.
From customer service, andthey're trying to find out about
the policy.
(22:41):
And they're like, oh, okay, sowhat's the fee on this policy?
And they're like, you know, MAnd E is 1.3.
And they're like, okay.
And then they go on to thenext thing, right?
What's, what's the cost?
But whatever the next questionwould be, they're only giving you
what you're asking for.
You need to keep asking.
There's investment options in there.
What is the fee on theinvestment options?
(23:02):
They're not going to tell youunless you ask, right?
What's the fee for the rider?
All in.
You end up at like 3.2% onsome of these things.
And, you know, that's just.
It's insanity.
It's great.
Well, those life insurance,cash value life insurance, like if
you buy variable life.
I was shocked when I foundthis out.
So obviously when you buy lifeinsurance, you're where you're paying
(23:23):
a commission.
So you know, there's insurance costs.
So some of your money doesn'tmake it into your cash account that's
being invested.
But the part that makes itinto the cash account, if it's variable
life insurance, they also, alot of times are charging you a sales
load on the Way into themutual funds.
It's like, wait a second, Ibought your product, and you put
the investments in theproduct, and now you're charging
(23:44):
me extra money for theinvestments in the product.
And that doesn't even haveanything to do with the expense ratios
that are also in there.
It's like, holy cow.
There's layers upon layersupon layers of these fees.
All right, so we've derailed this.
Perfectly typical with me.
I apologize.
(24:06):
But we wanted to talk about.
And maybe we can save thisepisode for everybody.
We wanted to talk about, whichI think has been fascinating.
I think we've got some reallyinteresting perspective today, which
is great.
But we wanted to talk about.
I think that there's a lot ofrisk with solo practitioners.
And I don't think I pick onattorneys, and I pick on CPAs on
(24:26):
this.
And I know, like, we have aparticular solar attorney that we
work with, who I think is wonderful.
Right.
But I do think, in general,there's a lot of risk with solo practitioners
in any of the three mainprofessions that we kind of focus
on, especially with financial advisors.
And I didn't know, you know,if you want to talk about, like,
(24:50):
we manage our financialplanning division to try to minimize
solo practitioner risk.
So do you want to talk aboutthe risks at all and maybe how we
focus on reducing that risk to clients?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I totally agree with you.
There is a lot of risk when itcomes to solo practitioners.
So specifically for financialplanning, I would say one of those
(25:13):
big risks.
Right.
Is lack of expertise in aspecialized area.
Right.
And that's why we take theteam approach.
Part of why we take the teamapproach here at seed, Right.
So there's collaboration andthere's a sharing of that expertise
among team members.
Right.
When you.
When you have a team in placeversus a solo practitioner, I think
(25:35):
the other thing is the risk ofdisruption if an advisor leaves.
Right.
Or is unavailable for.
For clients.
Right.
Or has a baby and they're out for.
Or has a baby.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know, you've got.
We have a situation here atSEED right now where we've built.
(25:57):
We've built this in a waywhere anybody can step in.
You're not just working withme, Right.
Or Dan or Travis.
It's.
You're working with SEED ifyou're a client.
Right.
Anyone could step in foranybody at any given time and pick
up exactly where that plannerleft off.
You could go in to what we've created.
Right.
The way that we take notes,the way that we document things,
(26:19):
the way that we work as a teamin general and pick up exactly where
that advisor left off.
There is no, oh, someone leftor someone's out four months now
someone has to step in and wehave to kind of start all over.
Right.
That's a big risk for us andrealistically, most importantly for
clients.
So I think one of the things.
The regulatory risk too, notto interrupt you, but that's one
(26:40):
of the things when you get anexamination from the regulatory bodies
that oversee financialadvisors is they look at secession
planning and they look at therisk of, you know, and a lot of people
are like that.
Well, you know, I was going tocall my financial advisor, they're
on vacation or something.
I can't get a hold of them.
Like, this is your money,this, this is your livelihood.
This is like your life's goingto happen and it's going to happen
(27:00):
when it not on schedule withyour financial advisor.
And if there's only one personwho can service you or help you and
your life happens to happenoff schedule with them, what are
you actually paying for?
Or, or what if that persondies, you know what I mean?
Or gets, it gets criticallyill or something comes up with them,
(27:21):
what do you have then?
You know, does anybody havethat file or access to that file
or know what's going on?
Yeah, and that's why, youknow, I think building standards
is a big, is a big part ofthis, right, where we can build something
where we never skip a beat.
I think the other thing thatwe're always kind of thinking about
with a lot of the decisionsthat we make, especially with financial
(27:42):
planning and not to get intocorporate lingo here, because I kind
of hate this word, but couldthis create a silo?
Right?
We don't want silos here.
We work very much as a team.
It's not these two advisorswork together with these clients,
right?
No, it's everybody workstogether based on what the needs
of the client are.
So, you know, to give you anexample of, of one of the standards
(28:06):
that we've put in is with ourwealth management clients, right?
Over a certain threshold of,let's say assets under management
that we manage for someone ora certain size of client, we always
have two team members workingdirectly with them.
Doesn't necessarily have to betwo financial planners, right?
It could be a financialplanner and someone from our investment
team if it's more investmentfocused client, but we have two people
(28:29):
on there for the client's own good.
Right.
If one of them are out, theother person can step in, obviously.
There's shared work there, butit's also for our own good as well.
Right.
If someone's out, we havesomeone to step in and take on that
role and be able to continueservicing that client the exact same
way that they always have been serviced.
So that's, that's just oneexample of a standard that we've
(28:49):
put in place.
But that brings in specialty too.
If, if you have a planner thatis a really great planner but doesn't
really get into the weeds onwhy we buy certain investments or
something like that, that'sjust not part of their specialty
yet or their tool set yet,having the ability to have somebody
from the investment divisionbeyond that planning team and be
able to explain to you this iswhy we're buying and selling that
(29:11):
particular company or thatparticular bond in your portfolio
is extremely valuable.
You know, and there's an awfullot of financial advisors that I've
seen out there who are like,you know, just buy index funds, that's
all that matters.
And, and because they're cheapand nobody can beat the market.
That is a, that is somebodywho doesn't understand investing.
So you've got somebody whomaybe would be very book smart with
(29:32):
the financial planningprocess, but they don't know anything
about investing.
And I always question it like this.
If you don't have somebody whoknows anything about investing, how
do you know that theassumptions in the financial plan
are correct?
You know what I mean?
Like, what's going to happen?
Fidelity will do this all the time.
We use E MONEY as one of ourtechnologies and they put projected
(29:57):
investment returns every timethe market crashes.
They're using 30 year averages.
So they'll come in and they'llsay, oh, you know, for the next 30
years you're only going to get5% a year on returns.
Now if you're an investmentmanager, you look at that and go,
that's nuts.
You know, the market's alreadyundervalued 25%, so we know there's
going to be a recovery, whichmeans you're going to swallow that
25%, you're going to have asequence of return issue, but your
(30:19):
averages are going to return.
Why would you project yourselfout and make yourself look extremely
poor and cause all that stressor vice versa?
You know, flip it.
There hasn't been a marketcorrection in a long time, make the
averages look better thatyou're likely not going to achieve.
But now it makes you haveconfidence to go out and do things
financially that you shouldn'tbe doing because you don't understand
(30:41):
how the investment marketsactually work.
And you know, dirty littleindustry secret is vast majority
of financial advisors outthere are not really focused on the
stock market and how themarket actually works outside of
just the headlines.
Correct.
Yeah.
There's almost not enough timein the day.
Right.
(31:01):
And that's why we split it up.
Right.
You, you cannot do effectivereal financial planning and manage
money for your clients.
It's, it's physically impossible.
Right.
And that's why we, I mean asa, as a financial planner, not as
a company.
Right.
That's why we've split it upwhere planners who come here.
Right.
And you probably had thisexperience too, Travis, in the past.
(31:24):
I know I did.
Where I was a financialadvisor in my past life.
Right.
At a different company.
And I was responsible for theinvestment strategy that we were
putting in place or choosingmutual funds.
There's not enough time in theday to do that if you're actually
doing financial planning.
Right.
So we need to have a generalunderstand of a good understanding
of what's going on in themarkets, good understanding of how
(31:45):
the strategies are deployedand how that the investments drive
the engine basically for thefinancial planning.
But we're not in there in theweeds making changes to people's
portfolios every day.
That's for our investment teamto handle.
So let's, let's, let's shutdown today's episode.
I mean, this was great.
I think we have some reallygreat takeaways for our listeners
(32:10):
and we'll start out our nextepisode talking a little bit more
about the team and kind of howyou work the seeds team itself and
what that looks like.
And then we'll get into alittle bit about what clients need
to or prospects.
You know, people out therelooking for financial planners or
(32:31):
if they're thinking about kindof their current relationship with
a financial planner, what aresome of the non negotiables and which
things they should be looking for.
So we'll kind of wrap up yourday job as seed and end with your
advice to everybody about kindof what they need to be doing to
get this right.
(32:52):
Thanks for checking out.
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.
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any topics you'd
be interested in having uscover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out.
(33:13):
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.
(00:21):
All right, Steve, we're onepisode three of our four part miniseries
with our, our senior VP offinancial planning, Jeff Chase is
in the studio today with usand he is digging into the art of
being a real deal financialplanner or wealth manager, not just
(00:41):
a so called advisor.
And he shared with us hisstory through the industry.
I love this because I think,you know, we talk about our story
all the time, but maybe we'rejust unicorns.
And here's Jeff, anotherperson who's walked a very similar
path, ended up in the sameplace thinking, you know, there's
gotta be a better way to do this.
Now how do we build thatbetter way to do this?
(01:02):
And you know, if you hear frompeople who are trying to figure out
how to do it better, I thinkit helps point out the things that
you kind of ought to befocused on as a consumer.
So this is pretty exciting.
We've, we've, we've coveredkind of who Jeff is.
In our first episode of this,our second one, we, our last episode,
we talked a lot about hisexperience in the industry and working
(01:25):
with some clients.
Today we're going to shift alittle bit and talk about his day
job and some of the, some ofthe things that, you know, he kind
of just some of hisobservations that I think are pretty
interesting and intriguing.
So we're going to let Jeff getinto that.
(01:46):
But first, Steve.
Yeah.
Welcome into Ditch the Suits.
I'm Steve Campbell, seniormarketing director at Seed Planning
Group.
This is Travis Most, our cohost and chief executive officer.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm and Ditch the Suits
is all about us bringing ourexperiences in the day to day to
help empower you to get themost from your money in life.
Hey guys.
Steve Campbell, one of the cohosts here on Ditch to Suits, want
(02:08):
to take one quick moment totell you about something that's near
and dear to my heart.
This is my very own podcastcalled the One Big Thing.
On the One Big Thing, Iwelcome guests from all walks of
life.
We take about 30 minutes tohelp share their story and really
culminate around this one bigthing that they want to let all of
you know.
As a listener.
These are going to bepractical ideas and ways of looking
at life that you can implementto become the best version of yourself.
(02:29):
On the One Big Thing we wantto help you overcome the challenges
that are holding you back.
So if you'd like a good, feelgood story that helps you overcome
challenges, check out the OneBig Thing, which is available on
all major podcast platforms.
Now let's get back to the show.
All right, Jeff, welcome back.
You're not running and screaming.
Still here.
Hanging in here.
(02:50):
This is good.
You're our third guest thathas not quit halfway through the
show.
So this is good.
It's good.
I mean, we've never had theright halfway through the show, but,
you know, we're.
We're figuring this out thesame as everybody else is.
So welcome back.
Let's talk about today.
I want to talk about seedsapproach to financial planning.
Because I've interviewedsomebody in the past is like, yeah,
(03:11):
I do financial planning.
I'm like, tell me about yourfinancial planning.
And he's like, yeah, we have,like, two meetings.
And I'm like, how much timedoes it take?
He's like, it's about an eighthour, eight hours total.
We.
We deliver a financial plan.
I'm like, what happens next?
Then we sell them life insurance.
I'm like, okay, we're not evenin the same world.
Like, we can't talk.
I can't talk to you.
You don't know.
You don't.
You think that you're like,I've met people.
(03:31):
I do what you do.
Yeah, tell me exactly what I do.
And then, you know, you know,they give you kind of the generic,
and it's like, look, there'ssomewhere between 8 hours and 32
hours, something's happeningfor that client or not happening
in your case.
What's the difference here?
There's gotta be somethingthat's happening in there, you know,
or this.
(03:52):
You know, I've talked to people.
I have 500 financial planning clients.
Really?
How many of them do youfinancial Planning for?
All 500.
How often do you meet with them?
Every year.
There's not enough meetings inthe week to do.
I can attest to that.
You know, you get more thanyou know.
When our planners get up toseven or eight financial planning
meetings a week, whether it'snew clients or reviews with clients,
(04:13):
that's a lot of work.
That is a large workload.
And so.
And we try to meet with ourclients anywhere from one to four
times a year.
And if there's things going onin their lives that are unique, it
might even be more, butsomething different is happening
than if it takes 18 hours ayear to take care of a client and
(04:36):
you've got 500 clients, youdon't have enough time to do all
that work.
So what's the deal here?
You know what I'm saying?
So talk to us about Seed'sapproach to financial planning, which
is literally your job.
You are the gatekeeper offinancial planning at Seed.
Yeah, yeah.
Something I'm very, you know,passionate about, grateful for.
(04:57):
Absolutely.
So, you know, really what wedo, again, our approach to financial
planning, I guess let's start.
There is real, straightforwardadvice, right, for clients.
No gimmicks, no selling products.
Kind of like we've beentalking about the last two episodes.
It's planning that includesall the essential services.
It's not just investments, right?
(05:19):
Investments is part of the deal.
It's not the most importantthing, right.
There's other things that haveto go on there.
There's tax planning, there'shealth care planning, there's estate
planning, there's looking atrisk management.
That's our day job, right?
So when you talk about, youknow, somebody having 500 clients,
that's physically impossiblefor you to be able to do financial
planning.
So once we get up to, youknow, you know, we have a number
(05:42):
of clients where we feel likethat's, that's the max for a planner,
for them to be able toactually do their job without us
sacrificing the client experience.
And that's a no go for us, right?
We're not going there.
We're never going to sacrificethe client experience.
But what we do is we bringpeople through a process, really
a tried and true process thatwe've done thousands of times.
(06:04):
And when I say that, I don'tmean that we're taking you through
some cookie cutter processthat, you know, your neighbor went
through.
That's not what it is.
It's.
The framework is there, right?
The framework is there becausewe know it works.
But everything we do from afinancial planning process is customized
to each client that comes inin their specific situation.
So I guess we'll start fromthe beginning, right?
(06:26):
When you engage with us.
We've talked in our previousepisode about the opening meeting,
right?
We have a conversation withyou, we get to know you, we get to
know about your goals, right?
That's, you know, nothing revolutionary.
I think most places probablydo some form of that, right?
But when we get you in hereand you actually decide, hey, you
know what, this sounds good.
(06:46):
Seed is a good fit for me.
I'm engage with Seed.
You're a good fit for Seed.
And we, we onboard you, wetake you through a very specific
process, right?
So there's a series of initialplanning meetings that we take you
through and those meetings arespaced about two to three weeks apart.
And there's a specific reasonfor that.
The reason we do that isbecause there's a lot of information,
(07:08):
a whole lot more than what,however many hours you said 18 hours
that goes into financialplanning in a year, right.
We'll take you through.
Your first meeting is probablygoing to be based around a making
sure that we have a goodhandle on your situation up front.
Right.
Taking a look at forwardlooking projections for some clients.
That might be Social Securitytiming, that might be pension selection,
(07:30):
that might be income sourcingor you know, an intro into tax planning.
Once we have that solidbaseline, we'll get you into investment
planning.
Right.
And we do investment planningsecond for a very specific reason.
Most people, and I notice mostfirms, let the investments dictate
everything else.
(07:51):
That is completely backwards.
The financial planning shoulddictate what the investments look
like.
So we start with the planning,then we move on to investment planning.
That's where we're going to doa deep dive into what you have, what
our recommendations are,getting things in the right places
and then we move on to risk management.
Right.
So that could be a number ofdifferent things.
(08:11):
But for example, that maybethat's insurance planning.
Right.
Maybe that's taking a look atwhat happens if there's unfortunate
events in your life that occur.
Is that going to take yourplan off course?
And then we'll get into estateplanning after that to kind of close
the loop on that initialseries of planning.
That's just when someone comesto us and that's the general framework.
(08:34):
That's not the same for everysingle client.
Right.
There might be additionalmeetings or additional conversations
in there, depending on whatyour situation is.
But then we get you into areview meeting schedule.
And it's not just you come inonce a year and we review your investments.
Now we have a very specificprocess that we go through at certain
points in the year.
(08:55):
We talk about certain thingsperiodically throughout the year.
We're doing things in thebackground to make sure that, you
know, there's no holes thataren't plugged, basically.
So that's really our processwhen it comes to financial planning
from a very, very high level.
(09:16):
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
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You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditchesuits or head to our show Notes
(09:38):
where we got links to our channel.
And I can speak to theorigination of that process when
seed was first started.
So this predates your time.
I know that you've got lesshair than me, but I'm still older
than you.
So.
But if we go back to the.
The origination of thefinancial planning process that we
(10:02):
use, my observation was everytime that we did the planning out
of order, the clients had meltdowns.
We had major, major clientissues with.
They'd be frustrated.
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing that?
They didn't have the body of knowledge.
When you're talking about theway that you're doing financial planning
(10:25):
is you are building aknowledge foundation.
Let me give you theinformation that you're going to
need to more advanced conceptsbefore we get to the more advanced
concepts.
Instead of getting to theadvanced concepts and saying now
let's go all the way back andteach you the basics.
So you start with the basics.
This is how kind of life looksand how it's projecting based on
(10:45):
what you've told us does.
Is that true?
Is that kind of what you're thinking?
And then you get into and youknow, here's how.
How you can make some tweaksto those investments to fortify that
or even make it look better.
Right.
Maybe it's not getting towhere you wanted to go.
Right.
You can, you could tell uswhere you want to go and then we'll
show you where you're headed.
(11:06):
And then you could say, well,geez, I like that or I don't.
And then we can show you howto make it even better, you know,
or if you want to do things,how it might make it worse.
So you walk people throughthat process.
You do the investment planning.
I think you talked about theinvestment planning always comes
after the financial planningbecause the financial plan should
drive the investment plan.
Can you tell share with peoplea good reason why that is so?
(11:33):
Sure.
I'll give you a great example.
That just happened this week.
We had a client come in whonew client.
Right.
We're probably two planningmeetings in at this point.
Came very aggressive with his investments.
Right.
Has always been 100% stocks.
Really I think because verycomfortable that way.
(11:53):
But I also think that, youknow, in.
In his view.
Right.
He thought that that wassomething that was necessary.
Right.
Where he's very concernedwhich is the opposite of most clients
that come in very concernedabout, you know, inflation and outpacing
inflation over time.
And I could tell that therewere things that either he had read
(12:15):
online, right.
Or videos that he had watched,where some of this stuff was coming
from, but always very, very aggressive.
And when we went through theplanning and we had a conversation
around his actual goals, himand his wife, right.
What was retirement going toactually look like?
(12:36):
Right.
They were able to share that.
Right.
And then we were able to talkthrough, okay, well, what do we think
that's actually going to cost?
He had some other goals as well.
Not just fun stuff.
Right.
It's not just, hey, I want togo on vacation or spend more time
with family.
Some char.
Credible interests, A lotgoing on there.
Right.
A bunch of moving parts.
(12:57):
But what we were able to do ishelp him to understand that, hey,
if you can accomplish everysingle goal that you've shared with
us, whether it be you havingfun, you leaving money to your kids,
you doing your charitablegifting and philanthropy, why would
(13:17):
we take more risk than is necessary?
And that statement right thereresonated with them quite a bit.
And they're like, you know what?
That makes perfect sense.
Right?
So we kind of did a 180 on howthey've been investing their whole
lives.
And, you know, we've got themnow in a what we call a moderate
plus portfolio, which is about65% in stocks.
(13:40):
And that's that sweet spotwhere they can do everything they
want to do without worry ofrunning out of money.
We don't have any worry of notoutpacing inflation.
It's kind of the best of bothworlds in that way.
So that's one example that Iwould give you.
Yeah, I think a lot of peopledon't understand that with risk,
(14:02):
there's a sequence of return issue.
And when you're looking at.
Whenever anybody comes in,there's what you need and what you
want, here's what you need,and then here's how you feel about
that.
And sometimes getting riskier,although you can make higher returns,
(14:23):
actually puts you at more riskof a lower output.
And sometimes getting moreconservative, although it can protect
your lower output, can meanyou can't reach your goals.
So there's.
There's a need box there thatyou can draw that you can say, look,
you've gotta be in this box toachieve your goals.
You.
You don't need that much risk.
In fact, that much riskactually puts you at jeopard.
(14:45):
And you also don't.
You can't afford to be that safe.
So you're somewhere in this box.
And maybe the box is between75% stocks and 55% stocks.
Now, how do you feel?
Do you love taking risk or doyou hate risk?
Well, you know, depending onwhere you are on that.
Or are you just really nervousand you're not sleeping at night?
Well, this is as conservativeas you can get and still have a fighting
(15:07):
chance to make your goals right.
Or this is as aggressive asyou can be instead of a fighting
chance to not get, you know,blown up when the market blows up,
that type of thing.
So I think that that's really important.
I had a client one time comein and they were working with an
insurance agent too.
And every time they went tothe insurance, they were the collector
that you were kind ofexplaining in the last episode.
They had four long term carepolicies, three life insurance policies
(15:31):
with long term care riders onthem, and they had just put their
entire life savings in anannuity with a guaranteed income
benefit, which is a fee drain.
So basically I pay you 3.8% ayear in fees, which is roughly probably,
I think what this was.
It was a lot of money in fees.
And you're going to guaranteeme for life that I could take like
a 4 1/2% income stream.
I don't remember all thedetails, I'm just kind of stereotyping
(15:54):
this a little bit.
But I could take a 4 1/2%stream of income as long as I'm alive,
starting like when I'm 70.
Right.
And it was like, okay, soyou're retired already.
Your pension and your SocialSecurity come out to about $120,000
a year.
You've got this half milliondollars in this retirement account
that you've told us you don'tneed that's only going to go to your
kids when you die.
And you just inebriated theupside of your market for fees, basically.
(16:19):
And in New York, the way thedeath benefit works is it's your
cash value or your purchaseprice, whichever is higher.
But the purchase price wouldbe minus any distributions.
So you bought guaranteedincome that you don't need because
you already have a 5,000amonth spread.
You're already putting thatmuch money into savings.
So you bought guaranteedincome for an account that you don't
(16:42):
plan to ever spend.
And the main goal of theaccount is to give it to your kids,
which means you would investit as if your kids are going to use
it in 30 years when they're retiring.
You wouldn't put it in thereand say, I don't want any growth
on this for the next.
Because they can't inherit theincome benefit.
They can only inherit the cashvalue of it.
(17:02):
And that's a perfect exampletoo of I'm collecting products before
I do my financial plan.
Then when we do the financialplan and we tell them that.
Now the problem is thatparticular client, they were extremely
mad with us.
They ended up ending therelationship because we're like,
look, you've had five meetingswith us.
(17:23):
Every meeting you come in,you've got a new insurance product.
This person is literally usingyou to buy cars and boats and houses.
That's you are dinner everytime you show up.
Stop buying stuff.
When you go to them, talk tous first.
You've bought so much longterm care insurance, you can't even
(17:45):
use it all statutorily in the contract.
They will not give you thebenefits because you have all these
other benefits that you canalready claim.
Stop buying more insurance,especially because you don't need
it.
There's nothing anybody cantake from you.
Right.
Like if you go into thenursing home, they can take your
income, but you're single andlive alone and you've already got
money to give to the kids.
Let them take your income.
(18:06):
Exactly.
You know, stop buying, youknow, you can't use $30,000 a month
of long term care benefits.
They won't let you.
It doesn't matter how much ofit you have, they're not gonna let
you use it.
Yeah.
And this is stuff we've run into.
I mean, it's just, it's constant.
Right.
I mean, even with another onethat I think of is just a recent
(18:26):
one where client had a lifeinsurance policy that, you know,
he was, you know, the overfunding.
The life insurance policy.
Oh, yes, right.
I mean, it's like plan, whichis frankly legal.
That's a, that's an industryviolation if you ever hear anybody
say that.
Most and most advisors, right,that I've run into don't really understand
(18:48):
the way that that actually works.
Right.
It's.
It's sold to clients on thisidea of, you know, whatever, creating
your own bank.
Right.
And you can pull money out in the.
The problem with this clientwas he was supposed to be putting
like $32,000 in there, right.
Every year.
He put like 100 grand in thelast two years.
(19:08):
Now it's a mec.
Now he can't pull money.
Right.
So now it's, it's not that hecan't, but it defeats the purpose.
You're referencing themodified endowment contract which
essentially it changed.
Life insurance from aregulatory standpoint, has a purpose.
And when you put too muchmoney in a cash based life insurance
(19:29):
policy, it changes thedefinition of what it is.
So it's no longer lifeinsurance per se, it is now an investment
account.
So now it has different rules, Correct?
Yep.
Yeah.
No, it's.
I, I was sitting with aninsurance agent one time.
Not to get off on anothertangent, but I'm gonna, I'm sitting
down with a life insuranceagent one time and I'm like, you
(19:50):
know the reason why I like youand the reason why I'm okay sending
a client to talk to you isbecause you come right out and say,
I'm an insurance agent.
I said, but you got tounderstand I was a million dollar
roundtable producer.
I sold a lot of insurance.
If you're going to sellgarbage to our clients, I'm going
to know it.
And we will never send youanother client.
No, no, no, man, I will neverdo that.
(20:10):
But have you heard thisstrategy where you put money in a
whole life policy and you pullit out to pay for your kids college
education?
And I just looked at him like,are you desperate or are you an idiot?
How did you not hear what Ijust said to you?
So then there's a client thatI sent to them and everything's an
(20:32):
upsell.
Oh, you better buy this.
Buying disability ridercoverage on your whole life insurance
is astonishing to me.
For an extra 1500 dollars youcan buy insurance on your whole life
policy.
That if you get.
And it's different foreverybody in every policy.
But I remember this particular case.
For $1,500 you could buy ayear, you could buy insurance so
(20:55):
you don't have to pay yourwhole life policy if you get disabled.
You know what you could buyfor $1,500?
A disability policy thatreplaces your damn income so you
could pay all your bills ifyou get disabled, not just your health
or not just your life insurance.
So it's, it's just, it's crazy.
Yeah.
And that's part of, that'spart of the issue with the industry
(21:17):
too.
It's not for the most partwhat I've run into.
It's.
And we've, we've lived it.
Right.
It's not the person, it'swhere they are in the environment
sometimes of what they'rebeing taught to do.
It's an ecosystem, what'savailable to them.
Yeah, that's, that's theunfortunate thing about the business.
So.
Yeah, well, I Think you make agood point.
(21:39):
It's it.
You.
You can't get mad at a sharkfor being a shark.
Maybe you shouldn't swim withcertain sharks.
Correct.
If you don't know how to kindof like not get eaten, you know,
it's.
I love it when people arelike, oh, I don't mind commissions.
And it's like, well, if youdon't mind commissions, you better
know what you're negotiating on.
Well, I think that's the key, right?
(22:00):
If you don't.
That that's exactly what it is.
You got to understand exactlywhat you're getting, Right.
You really need to know if youdon't mind commissions, you got to
know what you're paying for, right.
At the end of the day.
And sometimes there's hidden fees.
Right.
Everybody knows this, but there's.
Even when you call.
Right.
I've heard, we talked.
You talked a little bit abouthearing younger.
Not younger, but our newerplanners on the phone.
(22:21):
Right.
Or in meetings with clients.
You know, sometimes.
I know in the past I've heardconversations where, let's say they
call an annuity company with aclient and they say, okay, you know,
you've got this whatever,annuity, right?
And the planner's on the phonewith a rep from the.
From customer service, andthey're trying to find out about
the policy.
(22:41):
And they're like, oh, okay, sowhat's the fee on this policy?
And they're like, you know, MAnd E is 1.3.
And they're like, okay.
And then they go on to thenext thing, right?
What's, what's the cost?
But whatever the next questionwould be, they're only giving you
what you're asking for.
You need to keep asking.
There's investment options in there.
What is the fee on theinvestment options?
(23:02):
They're not going to tell youunless you ask, right?
What's the fee for the rider?
All in.
You end up at like 3.2% onsome of these things.
And, you know, that's just.
It's insanity.
It's great.
Well, those life insurance,cash value life insurance, like if
you buy variable life.
I was shocked when I foundthis out.
So obviously when you buy lifeinsurance, you're where you're paying
(23:23):
a commission.
So you know, there's insurance costs.
So some of your money doesn'tmake it into your cash account that's
being invested.
But the part that makes itinto the cash account, if it's variable
life insurance, they also, alot of times are charging you a sales
load on the Way into themutual funds.
It's like, wait a second, Ibought your product, and you put
the investments in theproduct, and now you're charging
(23:44):
me extra money for theinvestments in the product.
And that doesn't even haveanything to do with the expense ratios
that are also in there.
It's like, holy cow.
There's layers upon layersupon layers of these fees.
All right, so we've derailed this.
Perfectly typical with me.
I apologize.
(24:06):
But we wanted to talk about.
And maybe we can save thisepisode for everybody.
We wanted to talk about, whichI think has been fascinating.
I think we've got some reallyinteresting perspective today, which
is great.
But we wanted to talk about.
I think that there's a lot ofrisk with solo practitioners.
And I don't think I pick onattorneys, and I pick on CPAs on
(24:26):
this.
And I know, like, we have aparticular solar attorney that we
work with, who I think is wonderful.
Right.
But I do think, in general,there's a lot of risk with solo practitioners
in any of the three mainprofessions that we kind of focus
on, especially with financial advisors.
And I didn't know, you know,if you want to talk about, like,
(24:50):
we manage our financialplanning division to try to minimize
solo practitioner risk.
So do you want to talk aboutthe risks at all and maybe how we
focus on reducing that risk to clients?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I totally agree with you.
There is a lot of risk when itcomes to solo practitioners.
So specifically for financialplanning, I would say one of those
(25:13):
big risks.
Right.
Is lack of expertise in aspecialized area.
Right.
And that's why we take theteam approach.
Part of why we take the teamapproach here at seed, Right.
So there's collaboration andthere's a sharing of that expertise
among team members.
Right.
When you.
When you have a team in placeversus a solo practitioner, I think
(25:35):
the other thing is the risk ofdisruption if an advisor leaves.
Right.
Or is unavailable for.
For clients.
Right.
Or has a baby and they're out for.
Or has a baby.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know, you've got.
We have a situation here atSEED right now where we've built.
(25:57):
We've built this in a waywhere anybody can step in.
You're not just working withme, Right.
Or Dan or Travis.
It's.
You're working with SEED ifyou're a client.
Right.
Anyone could step in foranybody at any given time and pick
up exactly where that plannerleft off.
You could go in to what we've created.
Right.
The way that we take notes,the way that we document things,
(26:19):
the way that we work as a teamin general and pick up exactly where
that advisor left off.
There is no, oh, someone leftor someone's out four months now
someone has to step in and wehave to kind of start all over.
Right.
That's a big risk for us andrealistically, most importantly for
clients.
So I think one of the things.
The regulatory risk too, notto interrupt you, but that's one
(26:40):
of the things when you get anexamination from the regulatory bodies
that oversee financialadvisors is they look at secession
planning and they look at therisk of, you know, and a lot of people
are like that.
Well, you know, I was going tocall my financial advisor, they're
on vacation or something.
I can't get a hold of them.
Like, this is your money,this, this is your livelihood.
This is like your life's goingto happen and it's going to happen
(27:00):
when it not on schedule withyour financial advisor.
And if there's only one personwho can service you or help you and
your life happens to happenoff schedule with them, what are
you actually paying for?
Or, or what if that persondies, you know what I mean?
Or gets, it gets criticallyill or something comes up with them,
(27:21):
what do you have then?
You know, does anybody havethat file or access to that file
or know what's going on?
Yeah, and that's why, youknow, I think building standards
is a big, is a big part ofthis, right, where we can build something
where we never skip a beat.
I think the other thing thatwe're always kind of thinking about
with a lot of the decisionsthat we make, especially with financial
(27:42):
planning and not to get intocorporate lingo here, because I kind
of hate this word, but couldthis create a silo?
Right?
We don't want silos here.
We work very much as a team.
It's not these two advisorswork together with these clients,
right?
No, it's everybody workstogether based on what the needs
of the client are.
So, you know, to give you anexample of, of one of the standards
(28:06):
that we've put in is with ourwealth management clients, right?
Over a certain threshold of,let's say assets under management
that we manage for someone ora certain size of client, we always
have two team members workingdirectly with them.
Doesn't necessarily have to betwo financial planners, right?
It could be a financialplanner and someone from our investment
team if it's more investmentfocused client, but we have two people
(28:29):
on there for the client's own good.
Right.
If one of them are out, theother person can step in, obviously.
There's shared work there, butit's also for our own good as well.
Right.
If someone's out, we havesomeone to step in and take on that
role and be able to continueservicing that client the exact same
way that they always have been serviced.
So that's, that's just oneexample of a standard that we've
(28:49):
put in place.
But that brings in specialty too.
If, if you have a planner thatis a really great planner but doesn't
really get into the weeds onwhy we buy certain investments or
something like that, that'sjust not part of their specialty
yet or their tool set yet,having the ability to have somebody
from the investment divisionbeyond that planning team and be
able to explain to you this iswhy we're buying and selling that
(29:11):
particular company or thatparticular bond in your portfolio
is extremely valuable.
You know, and there's an awfullot of financial advisors that I've
seen out there who are like,you know, just buy index funds, that's
all that matters.
And, and because they're cheapand nobody can beat the market.
That is a, that is somebodywho doesn't understand investing.
So you've got somebody whomaybe would be very book smart with
(29:32):
the financial planningprocess, but they don't know anything
about investing.
And I always question it like this.
If you don't have somebody whoknows anything about investing, how
do you know that theassumptions in the financial plan
are correct?
You know what I mean?
Like, what's going to happen?
Fidelity will do this all the time.
We use E MONEY as one of ourtechnologies and they put projected
(29:57):
investment returns every timethe market crashes.
They're using 30 year averages.
So they'll come in and they'llsay, oh, you know, for the next 30
years you're only going to get5% a year on returns.
Now if you're an investmentmanager, you look at that and go,
that's nuts.
You know, the market's alreadyundervalued 25%, so we know there's
going to be a recovery, whichmeans you're going to swallow that
25%, you're going to have asequence of return issue, but your
(30:19):
averages are going to return.
Why would you project yourselfout and make yourself look extremely
poor and cause all that stressor vice versa?
You know, flip it.
There hasn't been a marketcorrection in a long time, make the
averages look better thatyou're likely not going to achieve.
But now it makes you haveconfidence to go out and do things
financially that you shouldn'tbe doing because you don't understand
(30:41):
how the investment marketsactually work.
And you know, dirty littleindustry secret is vast majority
of financial advisors outthere are not really focused on the
stock market and how themarket actually works outside of
just the headlines.
Correct.
Yeah.
There's almost not enough timein the day.
Right.
(31:01):
And that's why we split it up.
Right.
You, you cannot do effectivereal financial planning and manage
money for your clients.
It's, it's physically impossible.
Right.
And that's why we, I mean asa, as a financial planner, not as
a company.
Right.
That's why we've split it upwhere planners who come here.
Right.
And you probably had thisexperience too, Travis, in the past.
(31:24):
I know I did.
Where I was a financialadvisor in my past life.
Right.
At a different company.
And I was responsible for theinvestment strategy that we were
putting in place or choosingmutual funds.
There's not enough time in theday to do that if you're actually
doing financial planning.
Right.
So we need to have a generalunderstand of a good understanding
of what's going on in themarkets, good understanding of how
(31:45):
the strategies are deployedand how that the investments drive
the engine basically for thefinancial planning.
But we're not in there in theweeds making changes to people's
portfolios every day.
That's for our investment teamto handle.
So let's, let's, let's shutdown today's episode.
I mean, this was great.
I think we have some reallygreat takeaways for our listeners
(32:10):
and we'll start out our nextepisode talking a little bit more
about the team and kind of howyou work the seeds team itself and
what that looks like.
And then we'll get into alittle bit about what clients need
to or prospects.
You know, people out therelooking for financial planners or
(32:31):
if they're thinking about kindof their current relationship with
a financial planner, what aresome of the non negotiables and which
things they should be looking for.
So we'll kind of wrap up yourday job as seed and end with your
advice to everybody about kindof what they need to be doing to
get this right.
(32:52):
Thanks for checking out.
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.
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any topics you'd
be interested in having uscover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out.
(33:13):
Ditch the suits.
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