January 23, 2025 • 25 mins
Root Financial is redefining what it means to serve clients by putting team culture front and center. In this episode, James and Ari dive into the firm’s bold move to hire a Head of Culture—an uncommon role in financial advising—dedicated to supporting the growth and well-being of their advisors. Why? Because when advisors thrive, clients get the personalized attention they deserve.
At Root, we’re intentional about avoiding the usual industry traps, like overloading advisors with massive client lists or sales quotas that can compromise service. Instead, we focus on sustainable growth, aligning our goals with yours and using tools like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to stay on track.
With a Net Promoter Score of 91—well above the industry average—we’re proving that building a strong internal culture leads to happier clients and better outcomes.
Submit your request to join James:
On the Ready For Retirement podcast: Apply Here
On a Retirement Makeover episode: Apply Here
Timestamps:
0:00 - Company culture affects clients
4:08 - Ari's quick story
5:59 - Hiring a Head of Culture
10:54 - Advisors have how many clients?
14:24 - NPS and retention rate
17:28 - OKRs
20:57 - What makes Root different
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is going to be a fun episode.
I say that most weeks because Ithink they are all very fun,
but the past few weeks we'vebeen discussing behind the
scenes at Root.
What does team building looklike?
How are we actually building ateam that makes it so for all
clients and listeners andviewers that we're really giving
the optimal experience?
We talked about what's thedifference when you work with
one advisor versus another.
(00:20):
Today's really the final stepthere, where we're going to be
talking about the culture atroot.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is another episode of Ready for Retirement.
I'm your host, james Canole,and I'm here to teach you how to
get the most out of life withyour money.
And now on to the episode.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We recently brought on a head of culture.
Now we are a financial firm.
Why the heck would we do that?
And how does that relate ShouldI say translate to the client
experience?
Well, what we want to go intoin detail today is not just why
we have a head of culture, buthow do advisors get compensated.
Like you want to know thebehind the scenes, truly, of
(01:00):
what does it mean, when you're aroot client, to know that you
are really getting the most outof your money, because this is
money you work very hard for.
We want to make sure that weare giving you that optimal
experience and we want to showyou why.
So today we're going to hopinto head of culture.
Why the heck did you hiresomeone with the title head of
culture, james?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, good question for you asking like why is that
even a question?
This is a podcast about Rothconversions and estate planning
and tech.
Yes, it is.
That being said, for those whodon't know, we said this.
Ari and I are part of RootFinancial and Root Financial.
We are a team of advisorshelping clients to implement
these strategies that we talkabout all the time, and a lot of
clients listen to this podcast.
A lot of prospective clientslisten to this podcast and have
(01:41):
these types of questions, and Ithink, really, what we're trying
to build is something that'sdifferent, and it's different so
that we can better serve ourclients.
So traditionally, it's just okay.
I've got an advisor, my advisorpicked some stocks from me or
pick some mutual funds for me,and that's their job.
They're off in their officedoing that, and I think the
industry has evolved so much interms of what does an advisor do
(02:02):
, and we want to be on,hopefully, the cutting edge of
what that evolution looks likein terms of what is the value
that we can provide to clientslook like, and a big part of
that is, I guess I'll say, a bigpart of the client experience
comes down to the teamexperience.
What I mean by that is so manyadvisors.
I talk to wonderful advisors.
(02:23):
They love their job.
They love their work, they doincredible work for clients.
But then something happened atwork.
Typically it has to do with anacquisition.
Someone else acquired theirfirm and now all of a sudden
they're not really allowed to dogreat work.
They're not allowed, they'renot really encouraged to do
great work for clients.
They're encouraged to say hey,bring us a list of 50 friends
and family and we want you toconsistently call them to see if
(02:46):
they'll become a client.
Or bring us a list of clientsthat you think can refer other
clients to the firm.
And it's become so short-termrevenue-driven, short-term
profits-driven that it justtakes the life out of the firm.
It takes the life out of therelationship and it leads to
really strong returns forwhatever firm acquired this firm
(03:07):
in the short term.
But it kind of squeezes all thejuice, it squeezes all the life
out of it, to the point thatthe culture just kind of dies
there.
But when the culture dies,people leave.
When people leave, or whenadvisors leave, clients are left
wondering well, what justhappened?
I thought we had just developedthis plan.
Like I came to you because I'mabout to retire and I need
someone to guide me throughthese really important decisions
over the next 30 years.
(03:28):
I'm three years in and thatperson's gone.
Now what do I do?
And there's a couple of placeswe could go with this.
They say, oh well, work withthis other advisor, work with
Sally instead.
Hey, sally's great, but she'scompletely different than Joe,
who just left, or then Karen,who just left, or whoever.
And so there there's.
There's an issue with likeconsistency of advice.
(03:48):
I think at a lot of firms.
But the bigger issue is, if youdon't have a great team, if you
don't have a place that peoplewant to be, the people get
excited to be.
The person who pays for that isthe clients, and they pay for
that through.
A non-enthusiastic workenvironment leads to worse
outcomes for clients, leads toturnover, leads to just
(04:10):
suboptimal ways of being.
So I can keep going with that.
I don't know if you want tointerject or if I've gone on too
long, gary, but there's, I wantto make sure I'm addressing the
question you first asked.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Never too long and I want to tell a super quick story
.
But then I want to come back tothat question of so is there
one person in charge of head ofculture, and what the heck do
they do and how do they manageit?
And how many people do you evenhave at root?
Now?
So the real quick story is whenmy parents were working with
Wells Fargo, they used to try tobook a meeting at three o'clock
with their advisor.
It was always very difficult.
(04:40):
They'd always say they'd bebusy and one time my dad said
hey, can I book you out threemonths in advance?
I'm sure you have a threeo'clock available.
And they were like no, I'munavailable.
And really what it was is thatadvisor at three o'clock.
They just know the system atWells Fargo and this could be a
Wells Fargo thing, it could be.
I don't really know other thanafter three o'clock they know
(05:02):
that they truly can go homeearly as long as they've spoken
to X number of clients.
That's not me bagging on anyindividual firm, and certain
firms, I'm sure, have differentrules, but really my dad wanted
to meet at a certain timebecause it was best for his
schedule and they spoke to twoclients that day.
They were like I don't have tospeak to more than that.
And the crappy thing about ourindustry truly sometimes is that
(05:26):
advisors are so overwhelmedwith meeting their quota,
hitting their revenue goals,that they go.
I just can't spend as much timeas I want on current clients
because I'm so busy trying toget new clients, because my goal
just changed and now I have anew person that works under me
but turns out that's someonethat's going to shift in three
months because it's onlytemporary.
(05:46):
So this idea of emphasizingculture which, james, I think
you push more than anyone I'veever met, is something that is
really easy to not do, becausewe could just drive revenue like
crazy by saying every advisorhas to work with 400 clients
because then our value of thecompany goes to XYZ and then
clients like my dad go.
(06:07):
Why can't I meet when I want tomeet and like it?
This really does hit you as theend client.
So bringing it back to theculture, that head of culture,
why did you bring someone whoseonly job is to do that?
Because I've never heard of anyother company that does that.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well, because here's the thing Most financial firms
do this, but they do it oncethey've acquired.
There's a lot of private equitymoney in the financial advisor
world, meaning private equityfirms buying financial advisory
firms because it's an attractiveacquisition target for them.
And so what you get is you geta private equity firm and
they'll back some what you callaggregator, and this aggregator
will and I'm not saying all ofthem are, let's say, private
(06:48):
equity company came to Root andsaid hey, root, we're going to
provide you all these millionsof dollars and your job is to go
out and buy other firms andthat's going to be your growth
strategy.
Cool, we buy a firm up thestreet, we buy a firm in Florida
, we buy a firm in Kentucky.
20 firms later, you've got 20different systems, 20 different
cultures, 20 different ways ofdoing things, 20 different
groups of individuals.
You're trying to mesh.
(07:08):
It's just not fun and theculture dies the system.
That's a very difficult way togrow and not an optimal way to
grow in my opinion, althoughit's a very popular way for a
lot of firms.
And so what my mindset's alwaysbeen is how do we optimize for
fun?
Now I think people hear this atping pong tables and take every
Friday off.
Type fun, no like.
(07:28):
Fun is doing awesome work forawesome people.
That's fun.
Fun is only working with thesmartest, with the most driven,
with the most compassionatepeople that's fun.
Fun is only working with peoplethat, truly, that I'm going to
look forward to seeing at ournext team retreat in person.
Fun is doing awesome things andbeing at the cutting edge of
what we can provide to ourclients.
Fun is winning and growing anddoing great.
(07:51):
So, like, all those things arefun.
Fun in the sense of it'sengaging, it's purposeful, and
if you can focus on fun, and ifyou can focus on doing that for
30 years, 40 years, not I needto do something because the
private equity firm thatacquired us gave us five years
to hit these quotas beforethey're going to flip and sell
(08:11):
the company to someone else.
That's not fun, that's notoptimizing for what we want to
optimize for, and so you get alot of these firms that bring in
typically they'll call it achief people officer or head of
people, whatever it is and it'sto say, hey, we're broken, come
fix us.
We're trying to combine 20different firms with 20
different cultures and 20different personalities.
Can you instill HR policies,and it's a very reactive measure
(08:37):
to trying to fix a problem thatI don't think can actually be
fixed.
What we're doing is we'resaying how do we try to get
proactive about that?
How do we try to create anenvironment where, hopefully,
this can become a place, rootcan become a place where, if you
want to come work here, you canwork here for the entirety of
your career and have a lot offun doing it, serving awesome
people, serving people thatyou're going to look forward to
(08:58):
getting to work with, servingpeople that are going to look
forward to their meetings withtheir advisor, because it's
always a pleasant, it's alwaysan invigorating exchange when
you get to do that.
And so, if we can get on thehead of that to say how do we
define what our culture is?
How do we define the standardsthat we set to uphold that
culture?
How do we define what it lookslike to work with Root?
(09:21):
How do we get incrediblyselective about the team members
that come on board here at Rootso that every time we add a new
team member, root gets better.
It doesn't get more I don'tknow unruly.
It doesn't get more challengingto handle.
It doesn't get more okay, onemore person tracking.
No, we get better because thetype of people coming to us are
awesome people and we all wentand doing that.
(09:43):
And so the best thing that wecan do for clients is to create
that environment.
And again, environment of fundoesn't mean ping pong tables
and happy hours.
It means doing awesome,meaningful work with really
great people and having astructure, having an environment
where you're going to be fullydeveloped, that you're going to
(10:05):
come in already really, reallygreat, but we're going to be
committed to your personaldevelopment, to your
professional development.
And sometimes when I say this Imentioned this on another
podcast I almost feel like alittle bit silly saying it,
because we've just barelyscratched the surface of what's
possible.
And so if I look at Root Today,I think Root Today is awesome
and incredible and I see so muchopportunity just to make it
(10:27):
even better.
And so when I say this, there'sso much to be done and so many
cool things to have happen.
But why that head of culture?
Because clients win when we dothat.
No, they're not going to workwith that individual directly,
but they're going to work withan advisor who's going to love
being part of Root and is goingto be a direct contributor to
Root, who's going to have anenvironment where they're
(10:47):
supported, where they'redeveloped, where they're
constantly given what they needto succeed, and it's not just
like oh, we hired a role andeverything is fixed.
There's a whole bunch of roleslike that that we can leverage
across the team to serve clientsbetter, and that's just part of
what makes work fun, and that'sbecause of these better
outcomes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We've talked about NPS scores in the past.
How happy are clients?
And James, I don't know exactlyhow long you ran Root before I
joined.
Was it two, two and a halfyears?
Something like that?
Three, three years?
Yeah, three years.
And one of the first things youtold me was hey, you can take
vacations as you see fit.
And at that moment you know Inot worked for you yet.
(11:27):
I didn't really know what myday-to-day was going to look
like.
I had a few plans of things.
I wanted some trips I wanted totake.
I don't believe I took a singlevacation that first year, and
that's not due to my choice.
That is due to my choice.
That's not due to me being likeyou know, I just want to prove
myself.
I had more fun at work than Ithought I would have traveling,
(11:51):
and now I do have a lot of funtraveling because I have my
fiance and there's things welike doing.
But the point of the story isthis is someone for all of you
listening, who's saying theright things, but also coming to
me going hey, you told me youwant to take some vacations.
You haven't yet.
Why is that?
And I can say it's because Ireally enjoy being able to do
this, but I actually want toturn off by.
(12:15):
Instead of taking a vacation, Ijust don't come to work this
week or check my phone and Ijust play soccer, and that's
what works for me, which, if youcan't tell, is the case.
But for a lot of you out there,you might not even know that
there's venture capital moneythat come and try to buy smaller
companies, and I know myparents would have no idea about
any of this and then they'd gowell, why isn't, why aren't I
getting the ideal experience?
And it's because of thisculture, and one of the big
things that people just don'tknow about because how on earth
(12:39):
could you is how many clients ismy advisor working with?
And I bet if any of you workingwith an advisor today went to
your advisor and said, whatnumber am I?
You probably don't even knowand I'm not even sure they would
tell you, but my parents werenumber 187 out of 400 clients
working with one advisor at oneof their firms.
I don't believe I have morethan 400 Facebook friends, let
(13:02):
alone 400 people that I reallyknow.
So how do you make sure thatour clients are always working
with an advisor that's going togive them that optimal
experience with real attention.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, that's the.
You know, we did our masterplan last year and I want to do
some update to this.
But like that, that is as Italk here.
I'm not going to pretend like Ihave it all figured out, but I
think we have a team that'sdoing really excellent work and
we're committed to figuring outwhat I mean by that is.
I mean, no advisor at rootcurrently is at that cap.
So when I talk about numberswith the team of, hey, here's
(13:37):
the max number of clients.
It's a very soft number.
It's like a very soft maxbecause, hey, if we get close to
this and we realize we can'treally do much more work for
more people without the servicedeteriorating, great, like,
let's lower that, let's let'sget that number right.
(13:57):
But I think one thing that'simportant to note is a lot, a
lot of advisors I mentioned thisbefore is what is bonus based
upon?
What's based upon how you getout there and you hunt down your
friends and your family orpeople at rotary club or people
at church or whatever, and um,get them to sign up and that's
what your bonus is based upon,part of it at least.
We don't have that expectationfor advisors I think we very
intentionally wanted to create afirm where, if you're an
(14:19):
advisor, we want your time to be100% freed up to do awesome
work for your clients and if youmeet someone at the Rotary Club
and if you meet someone atchurch and become a client,
awesome, you're not beingincentivized to do that.
That's just going to naturallyhappen because you're an awesome
person, an awesome advisor.
But when we're looking atbonuses, by far the two heaviest
(14:40):
weights of advisor bonus, forexample, is client NPS score and
retention rate, two things thathelp us determine how well are
we serving clients.
We survey clients and the NPSscore for people listening is
just it stands for net promoterscore.
It's just a benchmark to sayhow happy are clients.
Are you getting the servicesthat you're looking for?
(15:01):
As measured by a couple ofdifferent factors and our NPS
score.
Last time we did this well.
I guess for perspective, insome industries anything over a
zero is good.
That means hey, you've got asmany people who are promoters of
the firm as you are detractors.
I think financial services,depending on where you look, 40
and above is considered good.
You're doing really well ifyou're above 40.
We're at 91 in our last roundof NPS scores, the highest you
(15:25):
can get is 100, which meansliterally everybody says there's
not a single person that has adetraction score or even a
neutral score.
So what that shows us is okay.
That's what we're looking at tomeasure how are we doing?
We think we're doing great work.
We think that as we build stuffout and design these structures
for clients, we think it'sgoing well.
But we need to hear fromclients through customer
(15:45):
satisfaction scores that happenafter each meeting, through NPS
scores, and that's just our wayof saying how are we doing as a
firm.
And that's also not justsomething we do for fun, but
that's what we incentivize foradvisors to say this is the
priority as we're working withclients.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I want to discuss OKRs briefly, which many of you
may never have heard of,including me.
A few weeks ago was not privyto these OKRs and what they mean
.
And really, when we talk aboutbuilding an amazing company, yes
, everyone says it starts withthe people and it's all about,
yes, do you have the rightpeople in the right places?
And, yeah, one bad apple cantake a company down and all
(16:25):
these things.
That is real life.
And when people say, I want tomake sure I always have the best
firm, and I'm, you know likethere's people that will say I
and they want to promote rootbecause they love where they are
.
But there's a small I want tosay small, but there's a good
amount of people that probablystart working with root, and
I've only know this because I'vespoken to a few of them.
(16:46):
So I'm now assuming many ofthem have these thoughts that go
look, I do love Root, I want tobe with the best firm because
I've worked so hard to get whatI have.
But how do I know the serviceswon't diminish?
And one of the ways to do thatis by having a system to make
sure those services don'tdiminish.
Well, there are certaincompanies that use certain
tactics and strategies to ensurethat everyone is going at the
(17:09):
company with the same vision,but not just vision get the most
life out of your money.
But here's how we're actuallydoing that.
So, james, I know you're reallyspearheading this whole effort
on OKRs within the company.
Many of you listening might beworking at a company going yep,
we're actually using this, andthe fact that you even said that
tells me you guys are doing theright things.
Some of you are like don't evenknow what you just said.
(17:31):
Can you explain that in English?
What are these OKRs and howdoes a company like Root use
this to make sure services neverdiminish?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So OKR stands for Objective and Key Results.
It's really just a goal-settingframework.
And you think back to companiesIntel in the late 90s or Google
or some of these giant firmsthat did incredibly well and you
assume that it's just becausethey had better technology and
that's what drove it in thelayers and you start reading
(18:01):
about what they did.
Yes, they have great technology, but it's because they had this
singular focus on creating thebest technology and working
together as a firm and bringingthe right people to the table in
terms of having certainprojects.
What do we prioritize?
What do we focus on?
How do we get full alignment inthe work that we're doing?
And you start to realize thatthis is so much more impressive
(18:23):
than just having greattechnology.
So Andy Grove was the CEO orthe ran Intel in the late
nineties and this is kind ofsomething that he spearheaded,
where he's just he's widelyregarded as just maybe one of
the best managers of all time interms of how modern management,
what that looks like and someof the things that were done,
and it's just a way of sayinglook what is.
I'll relate this to Rootspecifically.
(18:44):
What are Root's goals this year?
Well, we have this generalframework of inward, outward,
upward.
Upward is the growth side.
Yes, we have growth goals,every company should have growth
goals in terms of new clients,in terms of whatever it is.
But if we start there, we'remissing the pieces that are
going to drive that growth.
They said, okay, great, we gotto provide a great experience
for clients.
That should be the first goal,right, because we provide a
(19:06):
great experience for clients.
Then that leads to the growth,kind of.
But still that's not thefoundational piece.
The foundational piece is theinward piece.
So, when we think inwards, whatcan we do to create the right
foundation, to develop advisors,to onboard the right advisors,
to create the best possible team?
That is our focus, because oncewe get that I want to say once
we get it right like we don'thave we have a lot of things
(19:27):
really right by that, butthere's always going to be
opportunity to do better.
So how do we set an objectiveat the company level for what it
looks like internally, at Root,to be developed as a team
member, to be able to havecareer paths, to be able to
thrive within the organization,because that enables us to meet
our objective.
When it comes to service growth,how do we make a root service
(19:48):
offering the gold standard inthe industry when we have a team
of incredible people that aregreat at what they do and feel
fully empowered to helpcontribute to these growth
initiatives.
We have a great service modeltoday and we can make it even
better.
What does that look like?
What are the things that we canwork on?
How do we measure success there?
So there's the objective ofwhat's the goal here and what
(20:10):
are the key results that we'relooking at to define whether or
not we've had success.
Then, finally, we have theupward objective.
What does that actually looklike in terms of new households
we're able to serve?
In terms of new serviceofferings, we're able to talk
about one of which we're goingto talk about in a couple of
weeks here on this podcast a bigannouncement.
So I don't know if that's nextweek or in two weeks, I'm afraid
(20:31):
, exactly when this will bereleased and when that will, but
stay tuned for that.
So we set these goals, butgoals do us no good If we say,
hey, here's Roots goals andeveryone says that's cool,
that's awesome, that's inspiring, and then inspiring and then
goes back to what they're doing.
The goals need to flow downinto the department level.
Those two goals then needed toflow down into the individual
level.
So each individual when youhave the best individual, say we
(20:51):
can be a part of this.
We can kind of open source whatwe're building here to create
the best environment for theteam, which creates the best
outcomes for clients, whichleads to success for Root, which
can then be reinvested into theteam, into clients, and
continue that virtuous cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Do you guys hear that excitement?
That's why it's different hereand James can talk about
standard deviation withdrawalstrategy, but this is really
what lights him up and whatmakes me really excited to be
here is that we have someonelike you, James, who is
spearheading this withexcitement, because it's really
easy for people to just go yep,I don't have a Ferrari yet, so
we're going to grow by $200trillion this year until I get
(21:32):
that, and then we're good to gohere.
And you know, if people quit,people quit.
That is once again connectingit to my parents one more time.
They were number 187, workingwith an advisor that had 400
clients.
Guess what happened?
They had another advisor thatquit.
So now an advisor not myparents, but the firm had an
advisor that quit.
Guess where those clients went?
(21:53):
They went to my parents'advisor.
So now my parents' advisor has600 clients that they are
supposed to manage and then myparents are wondering why they
don't get great guidance.
A very simple exampleconnecting to why this culture
is so important.
Love this episode Reallyinsightful, James, anything you
want to leave people with.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
No, just if you're listening and still confused
about how much you shouldconvert to your Roth.
Sorry again, this is totallydifferent and you may not care
about this, and that's totallyfine.
Some people do, and so wewanted to say, like, if people
are asking, let's, let's make apodcast and talk about that,
(22:33):
because what we're growing iswith a team of awesome advisors
and team members and a greatgroup of clients that we get to
serve along the way, and ifyou're listening and you're
thinking that you're wanting tobe part of that, reach out to
see if that might be somethingthat we can help you with as
well.
So a fun conversation, ari, butthat's all I've got.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Many of you already know, james has his own YouTube
channel, his own podcast.
Of course we're all under theRoot umbrella.
I have my own podcast, earlyRetirement, and then, of course,
my name on YouTube as well, andthen we have the Root Talks,
which is where you guys get tohear this.
This is, of course, on both ofour podcast platforms and then
our root financial YouTubechannel.
(23:05):
Some of you have sent us emailskindly saying hey, how do I
find the video?
I looked up on YouTube but it'snot that easy.
If you go to either James or mychannel and you're just on our
main YouTube channel, if youscroll to the very bottom,
you'll see a featured channelssection and you don't need to
become a web developer oranything to find where this is.
(23:25):
Right at the bottom you see alittle icon with the root logo.
If you click that, that willtake you and you can see more
about our advisors, previousepisodes, and then big
announcement is coming next week, which we've alluded to, but
this is that final episode ofthat kind of three-part series
to learn more about root.
If you guys really like this,please send james myself an
email.
Let know we really love hearingwhat resonates with you guys.
(23:48):
You can, of course, also findJames on Instagram at James
Canole, and then myself onInstagram at Early Retirement
Ari.
We try to post more personaltype content when possible there
, and that's all.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I got Awesome.
Thank you, ari, thank youeveryone for listening and we
will see you next week for anexciting announcement.
See you guys.
Bye everyone.
The information presented isfor educational purposes only
and is not intended as an offeror solicitation for the sale or
purchase of any specificsecurities, investments or
investment strategies.
Investments involve risk andare not guaranteed.
(24:22):
Any mention of rates of returnare historical and illustrative
in nature and are not aguarantee of future returns.
Past performance does notguarantee future performance.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Viewers are encouraged to seek advice from a
qualified tax, legal orinvestment advisor professional
to determine whether anyinformation presented may be
suitable for their specificsituation.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Hey everyone, it's me again for the disclaimer.
Please be smart about this.
Before doing anything, pleasebe sure to consult with your tax
planner or financial planner.
Nothing in this podcast shouldbe construed as investment, tax,
legal or other financial advice.
It is for informationalpurposes only podcast.
(25:05):
If you want to see how RootFinancial can help you implement
the techniques I discussed inthis podcast, then go to
rootfinancialpartnerscom andclick start here, where you can
schedule a call with one of ouradvisors.
We work with clients all overthe country and we love the
opportunity to speak with youabout your goals and how we
might be able to help.
And please remember, nothing wediscuss in this podcast is
intended to serve as advice.
You should always consult afinancial, legal or tax
professional who's familiar withyour unique circumstances
(25:28):
before making any financialdecisions.
This is going to be a fun episode.
I say that most weeks because Ithink they are all very fun,
but the past few weeks we'vebeen discussing behind the
scenes at Root.
What does team building looklike?
How are we actually building ateam that makes it so for all
clients and listeners andviewers that we're really giving
the optimal experience?
We talked about what's thedifference when you work with
one advisor versus another.
(00:20):
Today's really the final stepthere, where we're going to be
talking about the culture atroot.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is another episode of Ready for Retirement.
I'm your host, james Canole,and I'm here to teach you how to
get the most out of life withyour money.
And now on to the episode.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We recently brought on a head of culture.
Now we are a financial firm.
Why the heck would we do that?
And how does that relate ShouldI say translate to the client
experience?
Well, what we want to go intoin detail today is not just why
we have a head of culture, buthow do advisors get compensated.
Like you want to know thebehind the scenes, truly, of
(01:00):
what does it mean, when you're aroot client, to know that you
are really getting the most outof your money, because this is
money you work very hard for.
We want to make sure that weare giving you that optimal
experience and we want to showyou why.
So today we're going to hopinto head of culture.
Why the heck did you hiresomeone with the title head of
culture, james?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, good question for you asking like why is that
even a question?
This is a podcast about Rothconversions and estate planning
and tech.
Yes, it is.
That being said, for those whodon't know, we said this.
Ari and I are part of RootFinancial and Root Financial.
We are a team of advisorshelping clients to implement
these strategies that we talkabout all the time, and a lot of
clients listen to this podcast.
A lot of prospective clientslisten to this podcast and have
(01:41):
these types of questions, and Ithink, really, what we're trying
to build is something that'sdifferent, and it's different so
that we can better serve ourclients.
So traditionally, it's just okay.
I've got an advisor, my advisorpicked some stocks from me or
pick some mutual funds for me,and that's their job.
They're off in their officedoing that, and I think the
industry has evolved so much interms of what does an advisor do
(02:02):
, and we want to be on,hopefully, the cutting edge of
what that evolution looks likein terms of what is the value
that we can provide to clientslook like, and a big part of
that is, I guess I'll say, a bigpart of the client experience
comes down to the teamexperience.
What I mean by that is so manyadvisors.
I talk to wonderful advisors.
(02:23):
They love their job.
They love their work, they doincredible work for clients.
But then something happened atwork.
Typically it has to do with anacquisition.
Someone else acquired theirfirm and now all of a sudden
they're not really allowed to dogreat work.
They're not allowed, they'renot really encouraged to do
great work for clients.
They're encouraged to say hey,bring us a list of 50 friends
and family and we want you toconsistently call them to see if
(02:46):
they'll become a client.
Or bring us a list of clientsthat you think can refer other
clients to the firm.
And it's become so short-termrevenue-driven, short-term
profits-driven that it justtakes the life out of the firm.
It takes the life out of therelationship and it leads to
really strong returns forwhatever firm acquired this firm
(03:07):
in the short term.
But it kind of squeezes all thejuice, it squeezes all the life
out of it, to the point thatthe culture just kind of dies
there.
But when the culture dies,people leave.
When people leave, or whenadvisors leave, clients are left
wondering well, what justhappened?
I thought we had just developedthis plan.
Like I came to you because I'mabout to retire and I need
someone to guide me throughthese really important decisions
over the next 30 years.
(03:28):
I'm three years in and thatperson's gone.
Now what do I do?
And there's a couple of placeswe could go with this.
They say, oh well, work withthis other advisor, work with
Sally instead.
Hey, sally's great, but she'scompletely different than Joe,
who just left, or then Karen,who just left, or whoever.
And so there there's.
There's an issue with likeconsistency of advice.
(03:48):
I think at a lot of firms.
But the bigger issue is, if youdon't have a great team, if you
don't have a place that peoplewant to be, the people get
excited to be.
The person who pays for that isthe clients, and they pay for
that through.
A non-enthusiastic workenvironment leads to worse
outcomes for clients, leads toturnover, leads to just
(04:10):
suboptimal ways of being.
So I can keep going with that.
I don't know if you want tointerject or if I've gone on too
long, gary, but there's, I wantto make sure I'm addressing the
question you first asked.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Never too long and I want to tell a super quick story
.
But then I want to come back tothat question of so is there
one person in charge of head ofculture, and what the heck do
they do and how do they manageit?
And how many people do you evenhave at root?
Now?
So the real quick story is whenmy parents were working with
Wells Fargo, they used to try tobook a meeting at three o'clock
with their advisor.
It was always very difficult.
(04:40):
They'd always say they'd bebusy and one time my dad said
hey, can I book you out threemonths in advance?
I'm sure you have a threeo'clock available.
And they were like no, I'munavailable.
And really what it was is thatadvisor at three o'clock.
They just know the system atWells Fargo and this could be a
Wells Fargo thing, it could be.
I don't really know other thanafter three o'clock they know
(05:02):
that they truly can go homeearly as long as they've spoken
to X number of clients.
That's not me bagging on anyindividual firm, and certain
firms, I'm sure, have differentrules, but really my dad wanted
to meet at a certain timebecause it was best for his
schedule and they spoke to twoclients that day.
They were like I don't have tospeak to more than that.
And the crappy thing about ourindustry truly sometimes is that
(05:26):
advisors are so overwhelmedwith meeting their quota,
hitting their revenue goals,that they go.
I just can't spend as much timeas I want on current clients
because I'm so busy trying toget new clients, because my goal
just changed and now I have anew person that works under me
but turns out that's someonethat's going to shift in three
months because it's onlytemporary.
(05:46):
So this idea of emphasizingculture which, james, I think
you push more than anyone I'veever met, is something that is
really easy to not do, becausewe could just drive revenue like
crazy by saying every advisorhas to work with 400 clients
because then our value of thecompany goes to XYZ and then
clients like my dad go.
(06:07):
Why can't I meet when I want tomeet and like it?
This really does hit you as theend client.
So bringing it back to theculture, that head of culture,
why did you bring someone whoseonly job is to do that?
Because I've never heard of anyother company that does that.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well, because here's the thing Most financial firms
do this, but they do it oncethey've acquired.
There's a lot of private equitymoney in the financial advisor
world, meaning private equityfirms buying financial advisory
firms because it's an attractiveacquisition target for them.
And so what you get is you geta private equity firm and
they'll back some what you callaggregator, and this aggregator
will and I'm not saying all ofthem are, let's say, private
(06:48):
equity company came to Root andsaid hey, root, we're going to
provide you all these millionsof dollars and your job is to go
out and buy other firms andthat's going to be your growth
strategy.
Cool, we buy a firm up thestreet, we buy a firm in Florida
, we buy a firm in Kentucky.
20 firms later, you've got 20different systems, 20 different
cultures, 20 different ways ofdoing things, 20 different
groups of individuals.
You're trying to mesh.
(07:08):
It's just not fun and theculture dies the system.
That's a very difficult way togrow and not an optimal way to
grow in my opinion, althoughit's a very popular way for a
lot of firms.
And so what my mindset's alwaysbeen is how do we optimize for
fun?
Now I think people hear this atping pong tables and take every
Friday off.
Type fun, no like.
(07:28):
Fun is doing awesome work forawesome people.
That's fun.
Fun is only working with thesmartest, with the most driven,
with the most compassionatepeople that's fun.
Fun is only working with peoplethat, truly, that I'm going to
look forward to seeing at ournext team retreat in person.
Fun is doing awesome things andbeing at the cutting edge of
what we can provide to ourclients.
Fun is winning and growing anddoing great.
(07:51):
So, like, all those things arefun.
Fun in the sense of it'sengaging, it's purposeful, and
if you can focus on fun, and ifyou can focus on doing that for
30 years, 40 years, not I needto do something because the
private equity firm thatacquired us gave us five years
to hit these quotas beforethey're going to flip and sell
(08:11):
the company to someone else.
That's not fun, that's notoptimizing for what we want to
optimize for, and so you get alot of these firms that bring in
typically they'll call it achief people officer or head of
people, whatever it is and it'sto say, hey, we're broken, come
fix us.
We're trying to combine 20different firms with 20
different cultures and 20different personalities.
Can you instill HR policies,and it's a very reactive measure
(08:37):
to trying to fix a problem thatI don't think can actually be
fixed.
What we're doing is we'resaying how do we try to get
proactive about that?
How do we try to create anenvironment where, hopefully,
this can become a place, rootcan become a place where, if you
want to come work here, you canwork here for the entirety of
your career and have a lot offun doing it, serving awesome
people, serving people thatyou're going to look forward to
(08:58):
getting to work with, servingpeople that are going to look
forward to their meetings withtheir advisor, because it's
always a pleasant, it's alwaysan invigorating exchange when
you get to do that.
And so, if we can get on thehead of that to say how do we
define what our culture is?
How do we define the standardsthat we set to uphold that
culture?
How do we define what it lookslike to work with Root?
(09:21):
How do we get incrediblyselective about the team members
that come on board here at Rootso that every time we add a new
team member, root gets better.
It doesn't get more I don'tknow unruly.
It doesn't get more challengingto handle.
It doesn't get more okay, onemore person tracking.
No, we get better because thetype of people coming to us are
awesome people and we all wentand doing that.
(09:43):
And so the best thing that wecan do for clients is to create
that environment.
And again, environment of fundoesn't mean ping pong tables
and happy hours.
It means doing awesome,meaningful work with really
great people and having astructure, having an environment
where you're going to be fullydeveloped, that you're going to
(10:05):
come in already really, reallygreat, but we're going to be
committed to your personaldevelopment, to your
professional development.
And sometimes when I say this Imentioned this on another
podcast I almost feel like alittle bit silly saying it,
because we've just barelyscratched the surface of what's
possible.
And so if I look at Root Today,I think Root Today is awesome
and incredible and I see so muchopportunity just to make it
(10:27):
even better.
And so when I say this, there'sso much to be done and so many
cool things to have happen.
But why that head of culture?
Because clients win when we dothat.
No, they're not going to workwith that individual directly,
but they're going to work withan advisor who's going to love
being part of Root and is goingto be a direct contributor to
Root, who's going to have anenvironment where they're
(10:47):
supported, where they'redeveloped, where they're
constantly given what they needto succeed, and it's not just
like oh, we hired a role andeverything is fixed.
There's a whole bunch of roleslike that that we can leverage
across the team to serve clientsbetter, and that's just part of
what makes work fun, and that'sbecause of these better
outcomes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We've talked about NPS scores in the past.
How happy are clients?
And James, I don't know exactlyhow long you ran Root before I
joined.
Was it two, two and a halfyears?
Something like that?
Three, three years?
Yeah, three years.
And one of the first things youtold me was hey, you can take
vacations as you see fit.
And at that moment you know Inot worked for you yet.
(11:27):
I didn't really know what myday-to-day was going to look
like.
I had a few plans of things.
I wanted some trips I wanted totake.
I don't believe I took a singlevacation that first year, and
that's not due to my choice.
That is due to my choice.
That's not due to me being likeyou know, I just want to prove
myself.
I had more fun at work than Ithought I would have traveling,
(11:51):
and now I do have a lot of funtraveling because I have my
fiance and there's things welike doing.
But the point of the story isthis is someone for all of you
listening, who's saying theright things, but also coming to
me going hey, you told me youwant to take some vacations.
You haven't yet.
Why is that?
And I can say it's because Ireally enjoy being able to do
this, but I actually want toturn off by.
(12:15):
Instead of taking a vacation, Ijust don't come to work this
week or check my phone and Ijust play soccer, and that's
what works for me, which, if youcan't tell, is the case.
But for a lot of you out there,you might not even know that
there's venture capital moneythat come and try to buy smaller
companies, and I know myparents would have no idea about
any of this and then they'd gowell, why isn't, why aren't I
getting the ideal experience?
And it's because of thisculture, and one of the big
things that people just don'tknow about because how on earth
(12:39):
could you is how many clients ismy advisor working with?
And I bet if any of you workingwith an advisor today went to
your advisor and said, whatnumber am I?
You probably don't even knowand I'm not even sure they would
tell you, but my parents werenumber 187 out of 400 clients
working with one advisor at oneof their firms.
I don't believe I have morethan 400 Facebook friends, let
(13:02):
alone 400 people that I reallyknow.
So how do you make sure thatour clients are always working
with an advisor that's going togive them that optimal
experience with real attention.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, that's the.
You know, we did our masterplan last year and I want to do
some update to this.
But like that, that is as Italk here.
I'm not going to pretend like Ihave it all figured out, but I
think we have a team that'sdoing really excellent work and
we're committed to figuring outwhat I mean by that is.
I mean, no advisor at rootcurrently is at that cap.
So when I talk about numberswith the team of, hey, here's
(13:37):
the max number of clients.
It's a very soft number.
It's like a very soft maxbecause, hey, if we get close to
this and we realize we can'treally do much more work for
more people without the servicedeteriorating, great, like,
let's lower that, let's let'sget that number right.
(13:57):
But I think one thing that'simportant to note is a lot, a
lot of advisors I mentioned thisbefore is what is bonus based
upon?
What's based upon how you getout there and you hunt down your
friends and your family orpeople at rotary club or people
at church or whatever, and um,get them to sign up and that's
what your bonus is based upon,part of it at least.
We don't have that expectationfor advisors I think we very
intentionally wanted to create afirm where, if you're an
(14:19):
advisor, we want your time to be100% freed up to do awesome
work for your clients and if youmeet someone at the Rotary Club
and if you meet someone atchurch and become a client,
awesome, you're not beingincentivized to do that.
That's just going to naturallyhappen because you're an awesome
person, an awesome advisor.
But when we're looking atbonuses, by far the two heaviest
(14:40):
weights of advisor bonus, forexample, is client NPS score and
retention rate, two things thathelp us determine how well are
we serving clients.
We survey clients and the NPSscore for people listening is
just it stands for net promoterscore.
It's just a benchmark to sayhow happy are clients.
Are you getting the servicesthat you're looking for?
(15:01):
As measured by a couple ofdifferent factors and our NPS
score.
Last time we did this well.
I guess for perspective, insome industries anything over a
zero is good.
That means hey, you've got asmany people who are promoters of
the firm as you are detractors.
I think financial services,depending on where you look, 40
and above is considered good.
You're doing really well ifyou're above 40.
We're at 91 in our last roundof NPS scores, the highest you
(15:25):
can get is 100, which meansliterally everybody says there's
not a single person that has adetraction score or even a
neutral score.
So what that shows us is okay.
That's what we're looking at tomeasure how are we doing?
We think we're doing great work.
We think that as we build stuffout and design these structures
for clients, we think it'sgoing well.
But we need to hear fromclients through customer
(15:45):
satisfaction scores that happenafter each meeting, through NPS
scores, and that's just our wayof saying how are we doing as a
firm.
And that's also not justsomething we do for fun, but
that's what we incentivize foradvisors to say this is the
priority as we're working withclients.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I want to discuss OKRs briefly, which many of you
may never have heard of,including me.
A few weeks ago was not privyto these OKRs and what they mean
.
And really, when we talk aboutbuilding an amazing company, yes
, everyone says it starts withthe people and it's all about,
yes, do you have the rightpeople in the right places?
And, yeah, one bad apple cantake a company down and all
(16:25):
these things.
That is real life.
And when people say, I want tomake sure I always have the best
firm, and I'm, you know likethere's people that will say I
and they want to promote rootbecause they love where they are
.
But there's a small I want tosay small, but there's a good
amount of people that probablystart working with root, and
I've only know this because I'vespoken to a few of them.
(16:46):
So I'm now assuming many ofthem have these thoughts that go
look, I do love Root, I want tobe with the best firm because
I've worked so hard to get whatI have.
But how do I know the serviceswon't diminish?
And one of the ways to do thatis by having a system to make
sure those services don'tdiminish.
Well, there are certaincompanies that use certain
tactics and strategies to ensurethat everyone is going at the
(17:09):
company with the same vision,but not just vision get the most
life out of your money.
But here's how we're actuallydoing that.
So, james, I know you're reallyspearheading this whole effort
on OKRs within the company.
Many of you listening might beworking at a company going yep,
we're actually using this, andthe fact that you even said that
tells me you guys are doing theright things.
Some of you are like don't evenknow what you just said.
(17:31):
Can you explain that in English?
What are these OKRs and howdoes a company like Root use
this to make sure services neverdiminish?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So OKR stands for Objective and Key Results.
It's really just a goal-settingframework.
And you think back to companiesIntel in the late 90s or Google
or some of these giant firmsthat did incredibly well and you
assume that it's just becausethey had better technology and
that's what drove it in thelayers and you start reading
(18:01):
about what they did.
Yes, they have great technology, but it's because they had this
singular focus on creating thebest technology and working
together as a firm and bringingthe right people to the table in
terms of having certainprojects.
What do we prioritize?
What do we focus on?
How do we get full alignment inthe work that we're doing?
And you start to realize thatthis is so much more impressive
(18:23):
than just having greattechnology.
So Andy Grove was the CEO orthe ran Intel in the late
nineties and this is kind ofsomething that he spearheaded,
where he's just he's widelyregarded as just maybe one of
the best managers of all time interms of how modern management,
what that looks like and someof the things that were done,
and it's just a way of sayinglook what is.
I'll relate this to Rootspecifically.
(18:44):
What are Root's goals this year?
Well, we have this generalframework of inward, outward,
upward.
Upward is the growth side.
Yes, we have growth goals,every company should have growth
goals in terms of new clients,in terms of whatever it is.
But if we start there, we'remissing the pieces that are
going to drive that growth.
They said, okay, great, we gotto provide a great experience
for clients.
That should be the first goal,right, because we provide a
(19:06):
great experience for clients.
Then that leads to the growth,kind of.
But still that's not thefoundational piece.
The foundational piece is theinward piece.
So, when we think inwards, whatcan we do to create the right
foundation, to develop advisors,to onboard the right advisors,
to create the best possible team?
That is our focus, because oncewe get that I want to say once
we get it right like we don'thave we have a lot of things
(19:27):
really right by that, butthere's always going to be
opportunity to do better.
So how do we set an objectiveat the company level for what it
looks like internally, at Root,to be developed as a team
member, to be able to havecareer paths, to be able to
thrive within the organization,because that enables us to meet
our objective.
When it comes to service growth,how do we make a root service
(19:48):
offering the gold standard inthe industry when we have a team
of incredible people that aregreat at what they do and feel
fully empowered to helpcontribute to these growth
initiatives.
We have a great service modeltoday and we can make it even
better.
What does that look like?
What are the things that we canwork on?
How do we measure success there?
So there's the objective ofwhat's the goal here and what
(20:10):
are the key results that we'relooking at to define whether or
not we've had success.
Then, finally, we have theupward objective.
What does that actually looklike in terms of new households
we're able to serve?
In terms of new serviceofferings, we're able to talk
about one of which we're goingto talk about in a couple of
weeks here on this podcast a bigannouncement.
So I don't know if that's nextweek or in two weeks, I'm afraid
(20:31):
, exactly when this will bereleased and when that will, but
stay tuned for that.
So we set these goals, butgoals do us no good If we say,
hey, here's Roots goals andeveryone says that's cool,
that's awesome, that's inspiring, and then inspiring and then
goes back to what they're doing.
The goals need to flow downinto the department level.
Those two goals then needed toflow down into the individual
level.
So each individual when youhave the best individual, say we
(20:51):
can be a part of this.
We can kind of open source whatwe're building here to create
the best environment for theteam, which creates the best
outcomes for clients, whichleads to success for Root, which
can then be reinvested into theteam, into clients, and
continue that virtuous cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Do you guys hear that excitement?
That's why it's different hereand James can talk about
standard deviation withdrawalstrategy, but this is really
what lights him up and whatmakes me really excited to be
here is that we have someonelike you, James, who is
spearheading this withexcitement, because it's really
easy for people to just go yep,I don't have a Ferrari yet, so
we're going to grow by $200trillion this year until I get
(21:32):
that, and then we're good to gohere.
And you know, if people quit,people quit.
That is once again connectingit to my parents one more time.
They were number 187, workingwith an advisor that had 400
clients.
Guess what happened?
They had another advisor thatquit.
So now an advisor not myparents, but the firm had an
advisor that quit.
Guess where those clients went?
(21:53):
They went to my parents'advisor.
So now my parents' advisor has600 clients that they are
supposed to manage and then myparents are wondering why they
don't get great guidance.
A very simple exampleconnecting to why this culture
is so important.
Love this episode Reallyinsightful, James, anything you
want to leave people with.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
No, just if you're listening and still confused
about how much you shouldconvert to your Roth.
Sorry again, this is totallydifferent and you may not care
about this, and that's totallyfine.
Some people do, and so wewanted to say, like, if people
are asking, let's, let's make apodcast and talk about that,
(22:33):
because what we're growing iswith a team of awesome advisors
and team members and a greatgroup of clients that we get to
serve along the way, and ifyou're listening and you're
thinking that you're wanting tobe part of that, reach out to
see if that might be somethingthat we can help you with as
well.
So a fun conversation, ari, butthat's all I've got.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Many of you already know, james has his own YouTube
channel, his own podcast.
Of course we're all under theRoot umbrella.
I have my own podcast, earlyRetirement, and then, of course,
my name on YouTube as well, andthen we have the Root Talks,
which is where you guys get tohear this.
This is, of course, on both ofour podcast platforms and then
our root financial YouTubechannel.
(23:05):
Some of you have sent us emailskindly saying hey, how do I
find the video?
I looked up on YouTube but it'snot that easy.
If you go to either James or mychannel and you're just on our
main YouTube channel, if youscroll to the very bottom,
you'll see a featured channelssection and you don't need to
become a web developer oranything to find where this is.
(23:25):
Right at the bottom you see alittle icon with the root logo.
If you click that, that willtake you and you can see more
about our advisors, previousepisodes, and then big
announcement is coming next week, which we've alluded to, but
this is that final episode ofthat kind of three-part series
to learn more about root.
If you guys really like this,please send james myself an
email.
Let know we really love hearingwhat resonates with you guys.
(23:48):
You can, of course, also findJames on Instagram at James
Canole, and then myself onInstagram at Early Retirement
Ari.
We try to post more personaltype content when possible there
, and that's all.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I got Awesome.
Thank you, ari, thank youeveryone for listening and we
will see you next week for anexciting announcement.
See you guys.
Bye everyone.
The information presented isfor educational purposes only
and is not intended as an offeror solicitation for the sale or
purchase of any specificsecurities, investments or
investment strategies.
Investments involve risk andare not guaranteed.
(24:22):
Any mention of rates of returnare historical and illustrative
in nature and are not aguarantee of future returns.
Past performance does notguarantee future performance.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Viewers are encouraged to seek advice from a
qualified tax, legal orinvestment advisor professional
to determine whether anyinformation presented may be
suitable for their specificsituation.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Hey everyone, it's me again for the disclaimer.
Please be smart about this.
Before doing anything, pleasebe sure to consult with your tax
planner or financial planner.
Nothing in this podcast shouldbe construed as investment, tax,
legal or other financial advice.
It is for informationalpurposes only podcast.
(25:05):
If you want to see how RootFinancial can help you implement
the techniques I discussed inthis podcast, then go to
rootfinancialpartnerscom andclick start here, where you can
schedule a call with one of ouradvisors.
We work with clients all overthe country and we love the
opportunity to speak with youabout your goals and how we
might be able to help.
And please remember, nothing wediscuss in this podcast is
intended to serve as advice.
You should always consult afinancial, legal or tax
professional who's familiar withyour unique circumstances
(25:28):
before making any financialdecisions.
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