We talked with Bob about:

• The power of and potential issues in finding a niche as a financial planner
• How firms can use a “staff first” mentality to tackle the Great Resignation 
• The issues with cryptocurrency in financial planning

About Bob Veres

Forty years ago, Bob Veres was hired as the editor of Financial Planning Magazine. Without prior knowledge of the industry, he fell in love with the idea of financial planning and started his own publication, Inside Information. As a well-respected thought leader in the industry, Bob strives to provide financial planners with the most relevant information, resources, and strategies.

Featured Resources 

• Bob Veres LinkedIn
• Bob Veres’ Inside Information
• Bob Veres’ Inside Information LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Inside Information 
• Attend Bob Veres’ Insiders Forum
• Bob Veres’ Blog
• Pulse of the Industry Survey 2022: Start of the Year Survey by The Ensemble Practice
• “The Problem with Bitcoin, the Soaring Cryptocurrency” by Bob Veres
• “The Great Adoption” by Bob Veres

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I feel like you really don't even need an introduction. You're so well known in the industry and have written so many amazing articles and host a conference and are just such an incredible thought leader. So I'm really excited to hear from you today, but for those who are not as familiar with the financial planning space and some of your columns that you've written, I'd love just to hear a little bit more. Do you mind just sharing a little bit more about your background and how you got into where you are today?

Bob (00:31):
Yeah. I was hoping to get a 20-minute introduction so that we don't need be talking for 10 minutes, but obviously that's not gonna happen now. So my background really is that I was a writer in Atlanta and was hired to be the editor of a financial planning magazine. And I start out in this profession with no knowledge whatsoever, which is a scary place to start, but you get a chance to see everything with fresh eyes. The great thing about it was I could go to people and I could say, I'm a dumb journalist, I know nothing, speak slowly, use words I might understand and help me learn. And the funny thing is, this is 40 years later.

Bob (01:16):
Now I'm still saying that very same thing when I do my interviews, because you're never gonna learn all of it or even even a decent fraction of it. So that was back in the 1980s. And I fell in love with the idea of financial planning and was appalled at how it was being applied. Back then, software was being introduced in the financial planning profession. That is literally how far I go back, the age of rotary phones and the way that software is being used; you would input a whole bunch of different client numbers into the software and the software would reliably come out with a recommendation that people needed to buy limited partnerships and whole life insurance. And because the computer was recommending it instead of an advisor, it had this ring of truth to it.

Bob (02:06):
And that was really the origins of financial planning. And I spent a lot of my early time trying to bring a measure of idealism to basically a sales profession and here 40 years later, we're about halfway in. We've got a lot of people who are truly idealistic about financial planning, and we have a lot of people who see it as purely a business opportunity. So, and we can talk about that if you want, but that's how I got into the business. And then eventually I stopped being the editor of the financial planning magazine and started publishing my own newsletter. So I could basically write whatever I wanted.

Lauren (02:45):
Well, you've seen the industry change so much over the years. And I think right now is especially interesting, coming out of, well, hopefully we're all coming out of COVID, right? But there's so many changes between topics like recruiting, mergers and acquisitions, technology, cryptocurrency. What are some trends that you're seeing? I know you started to allude to that a little bit earlier, but are there any key things that we should be looking out for as we look ahead?

Bob (03:14):
Yeah. Well, there's more evolution going on right now than at any other time in my career. The profession is changing and some of it is COVID-driven, some of it's technology-driven, some of it's social media-driven. Then you mentioned cryptocurrencies, which we'll get into in a minute, but so we have all these different winds blowing around in the profession. And the thing that I talk to advisors about is you need to be riding those winds in interesting ways because they're blowing us toward the future. And the first thing I would say is a lot of people are resisting change. They don't want things, some things, to change; they're my age. And they're saying, I don't want anything to change until I've retired in 15 years, and that's not a really good way to manage a business.

Bob (04:05):
And it's not really a forward thinking way to handle things. And I might sometimes in my presentations, I'll say, raise your hand if you would like to go back to where you were 25 years ago. And very few hands go up. And I say what that means is that change has been your friend for the last 25 years. Embrace it, don't fight it. But to get to some specifics, I think the biggest and most important change has been the adoption of this technology we're using right now, this ability to meet with clients remotely. And what that means is basically that if you could meet with clients remotely, you can work with clients anywhere. You don't have to be confined to your 50-mile radius of your office area. But it also means that every advisor in the country is able to compete with you in your backyard.

Bob (05:03):
And so what does that mean? Well, it means if everybody's competing with everybody else, anywhere in the country, then there's really two strategies that could conceivably win under those circumstances. The first is you could be low cost, the low-cost producer, the low-cost provider of services. And you could be lower cost and somebody else could undercut you. And then somebody else could undercut that person. You could undercut somebody. And what we're doing is spiraling down to zero, where you offer your services for free for roughly as long as it takes for you to go bankrupt, which is not, I think, a great business strategy. So looking for an alternative to that not great business strategy, the only other way to manage that emerging competition, that emerging global competition, is to have a niche, to have a specialty, to have a specialty client.

Bob (06:01):
Niche was a pretty good idea. It was a good business idea for a while. Now it's a necessity. Now I don't say it's a necessity this very moment, because I think most advisors haven't really started marketing themselves globally yet. But those who have are really well off when they have a specialty, when they work with a particular type of client. At the last presentation I gave, I invited the audience to imagine somebody who's coming out of residency, a doctor coming outta residency, and they've got a whole bunch of questions and the questions are not confined to will I be able to retire? And do I have the right insurance coverage? Their questions are things like where should I affiliate? Should I start my own practice? What do I need in my practice? What kind of insurance will I need in specialized doctor-related insurance?

Bob (06:54):
So what's the word? Liability insurance. What should the office look like? How should it be staffed? How much money do I need to invest in it? And when can I expect to start turning a profit and what are the banking arrangements? Where can I get the loan for this? Those are very difficult questions for somebody coming out. And so I'm looking around for an advisor, right? And I find one; he's right next door, literally right next door to my apartment is this advisor. And he provides comprehensive financial planning on a fee-only basis. And he's a fiduciary, or she's a fiduciary. And somebody way over on the other side of the Mississippi specializes in doctors coming out of residency and has helped dozens of people answer all those questions this physician has. Who would you go with?

Bob (07:45):
Who would you work with? So geography means nothing anymore. And we're only now starting to figure that out, what I think is the biggest challenge for most advisory firms. There are two implications. First is that having a specialized clientele means that you are gonna be more efficient. When I've talked to business consultants—Tracy Beckes was the person who told me this years ago and she was right. She said the single most important thing that I notice for the most profitable firms in the business is that they have a specialty clientele. I said, well, wait, what if they work with not like poor people or what if they work with the homeless or something. She said it doesn't matter. She said the efficiency you get working with people who, when they walk in the door, you know their challenges, immediately trumps everything else in terms of profitability.

Bob (08:44):
And the second thing, and this I think might even be more important, is that when you have a specialty, you can deliver much more valuable advice than you ever could. When you were reinventing the wheel every time somebody walked in the office, when you offer generic financial planning and manage assets for a fee, there's a value to that. No question. But the other more specialized advice is much more valuable. And I think we're finally getting to the point. I remember, years ago, people would say nobody will pay for financial planning advice. And that was true when most of what you were offering could be done with a spreadsheet. It will not be true when you're offering that very specialized advice to specialized clientele. All of a sudden people will be willing to open up their checkbooks and pay for financial planning because it'll be that much more valuable to them in their lives.

Lauren (09:41):
So, Bob, we have some clients where we've been encouraging them to pick a niche, or even we talk a lot about firms’ structure, right? There might be that umbrella target. And then there's advisor groups, if you will, that have a specific vertical, but sometimes I see situations where leadership is afraid to be able to pick a target. What would you say to owners who just wanna kind of market to everyone?

Bob (10:09):
You know, I'm a big believer in saying, just get over it. But I don't think that's very valuable consulting advice, just get over it. Surprisingly, not everybody takes my advice when I just use those words, but you know, the danger is that you'll lose your existing clients and your existing business when you decide to specialize. I mean, the way to specialize is you find people you really enjoy working with, you find what they have in common, and then you try and replicate that client base and increasingly focus your services on those people. And, it's a tried and true method, but it does leave out the other 80% of your clients. But when you decide to specialize, they'll notice when you put in your website, we now call ourselves the doctor solution or something. You know, the people who are not doctors are gonna say, wait a minute, what was this? Your website? What are you doing again?

Bob (11:05):
And so what you do is you go back to them and say before you put that on your website, you say we're creating a specialized service for doctors, and we're hoping to do a really good job with this. But you've been really valuable to us. We really enjoyed working with you. And would it be possible for you to continue working with us as we go through this process forever. We don't ever wanna lose you as a client. We just want to be working more and more and more with this specialization. The danger really is when clients say they're gonna leave me behind. And so I'm gonna break up before they break up with me, and everybody who's ever been in a relationship understands that dynamic. What you wanna do is preempt that dynamic. You wanna say you are a special client. We want you to work with us before the suspicion grows that there's gonna be a breakup. Yeah. And then you maintain your client base.

Lauren (12:06):
Yeah. Honestly, in the firms that we've worked with where they've decided to specialize, and while it does not align with their current base, it hasn't necessarily turned away current clients because there's that trust that's already been built. But I think that you make a very valid point about that transparency upfront that helps to set the tone moving forward. 

Bob (12:26):
Here you've noticed in your consulting that advisors never have as much confidence in the actual solidity of those client relationships. Clients always underestimate the power of their relationship with their clients.

Lauren (12:42):
Yes. That's fair. I think very accurate as well. Now we also have some firms we've worked with where you mentioned earlier, right? We're in this virtual world. And so I've had some firms we've worked with, especially those that work with more of an ultra-high-net-worth client. And they talk about the onboarding process and they've entertained buying iPads. They wonder if they should send those out with all of their firm information. We talk about the metaverse and how that could be changing the future and even potential engagements. I think we've all been surprised about Zoom, right? And how we've been able to have these kinds of conversations like we're having now. What do you think as we move forward will be that kind of dialogue if we are kind of flattening the field and it's not so geographic specific?

Bob (13:28):
I'm gonna give you an out-of-the-box answer. But my facetious answer is I really think this social media thing is gonna go away pretty soon. And, I said that about the internet and I think I was pretty much right about that, right? The internet was gonna go away and not be the out- of-the-box answer. I think the communication technology, if you will, the social aspects of the technology, are really more of a marketing thing than they are a client relationship thing. I mean, the Zoom meetings are a client relationship thing, but what I think that the big change right now is it's not how we'll meet with clients. I mean, we'll meet with clients on Zoom, we'll meet with clients in-person. They'll probably wanna meet in-person the first couple of times if they can, if they live in a proximity; if not, you know, we're communicating just fine at this very moment. The big change, I think, is that most advisory firms, they put on their website a picture of themselves. And it looked like a walk-in bank and they put pictures of their staff and their head shots, very professional. And the old paradigm was we wanna look professional and the paranoia of advisors was we're not professional enough. People don't think of us as a real profession. I think we've passed that hurdle. And now what I think the paradigm is we wanna be accessible.

Bob (15:03):
And accessibility is posting things on social media that show who you are and what you're about and where you live and what you're doing. And maybe some children, maybe some dogs; I’m not opposed to a picture with your family and a dog looking proudly into the horizon. So candid shots. The firms that seem to me to be the most effective marketing right now are using these candid pictures on their website. And they're also inviting people. Each one of their profiles invites people to follow them on Twitter or Facebook or something. And if I'm a client, or a prospect I should say, and I'm looking around at different firms, I find this one firm. And they look like walk-in banks, they have suits and ties. And they look a little bit smug and professional, and I'm thinking, wow, those guys look really impressive. They could steal my money and I'd never know it.

Bob (16:02):
And this other one, boy, that person looks like a lot of fun. You know, I'm gonna check 'em out. And then the first one that looks like a walk-in bank, they're not on social media. What are they hiding? They're out there. This is who they are. This is what they do. And that may turn off an occasional client. But if you've got everybody on your staff promoting themselves in their own way and being out there, there's gonna be a point of connection with just about everybody, I think.

Lauren (16:30):
Yeah, I agree. It comes down to trust, right? Because as you mentioned earlier, it can be the only fiduciary, comprehensive financial planning, all these kinds of things. And then if you've got a niche, your differentiator could be that particular target, but what it is at the end of the day, it's about that relationship and that trust and how you can build that authenticity through being you, right? 

Bob (16:55):
Yeah. Authenticity is trust these days, I think.

Lauren (16:59):
Yes. I agree. And I think, especially in this digital world, where people are checking you out before they're gonna make that phone call. They're gonna review your website. They're gonna look at LinkedIn, these kinds of places. And that's a little bit of an indicator of who you are and what you'd be like to work with. 

Bob (17:17):
Philip Palaveev of The Ensemble Practice just did a research study. And I talked to him on the phone about it. And the first thing they asked clients was where did you find your advisor? And many of them say through a referral of one sort or another, my accountant, or my friend or my family or whatever. And so you would think that it was all referral marketing, right? But then when you got deeper, there were follow-up questions. How many people did you consider? And the answer, I think the average answer was four. And they checked every one of them, and then another answer was they work with people like me or they couldn't find those things out without doing a web search. And so, maybe they did get a referral. Maybe they were told, go see my friend Joe, he's a great financial planner, here's his number. But there was a certain amount of checking out for every one of those referrals. And so people who ignore social media and say I do referral marketing, people who ignore the value of their website are probably not getting the value of those referrals. It’s probably much more hit and miss referrals they're getting.

Lauren (18:40):
That's fair. So I'm gonna shift gears a little bit here. So, we'd like to talk a little bit about the Great Resignation going on. There's also a huge trend. Well, I shouldn't necessarily say trend in this industry cause it's been a long-term challenge about recruiting and hiring, all of these types of things. And we've talked just recently about really positioning of the structure, the target market, if you will, and marketing terms and all these things, they basically tap up to the big picture business strategy, right? Are we gonna merge, what does our recruiting structure look like? Who do we wanna hire? And I'd love just to hear your thoughts about what's happening in the industry with those pieces that are a little bit louder now perhaps than they were even a few years ago. 

Bob (19:29):
The big picture, your story of course, is that advisors who are on staff and operations people on staff have a lot more options now than they ever did before. And when you give them options, they can work remotely. They've been working remotely and had time to consider their current firm. And they got to see the character of their current firm: Are they trying to micromanage me at my kitchen table? Are they gonna force me to come back in the middle of the pandemic? And having those options and having more data and more concern about, I've got a life and this is part of my life, a big part of my life. What am I gonna do? So what everybody's calling the Great Resignation is really a great reassessment.

Bob (20:17):
There's a lot more reconsidering where I am right now and noticing that I have a lot more options. And so the obvious solution, once you frame it that way, the solution is obvious. You need to create an environment that people will enjoy working in where there's a commitment to the career development of your people, where everybody is treated like adults, like valued members of a team and where there's a certain willingness to let people do their jobs without being told what to do and how to do it, if that makes sense, a certain autonomy that needs to be. And don't forget the salary thing, the pay and compensation studies and the money; the salaries really haven't moved much in the last five years.

Bob (21:16):
And now that we have raging inflation and people have more options, there's probably gonna be a demand for higher salaries. And the firms that refuse to pay that are the ones that are gonna lose out on the best talent. So I've been writing about firms that have a staff-first mentality. And that sounds like heresy. The first time I wrote about that, people were saying, well, Bob, the clients come first; don't you understand that? And the truth is the clients don't always come first. If a client is an asshole to your staff, your staff comes first. So what the staff-first mentality really means is we are first and foremost committed to our staff, people being the best people they can be in the context of the profession, and when they are that, and when they're allowed to excel, they will deliver exceedingly good service.

Bob (22:12):
One of the firms I talk to, they take five hours a week of training and moving your firm forward, coaching, mentoring. Instead of a 40-hour week, it's a 35-hour week. And I said, well, that probably means production goes down, right? And he said they work harder in those 35 hours than they ever worked in the 40; they get more done in the 35 than they did before. And I tell people, I get more done by noon every day than most people by 12:15, 12:30 or so, maybe 12:45. So the point is, people respond to certain things that I think we all know about. The question is, are you willing to offer those things?

Lauren (23:00):
Yep, that's fair. If you can take good care of your people, they're gonna take good care of your clients and help everyone to flourish. 

Bob (23:07):
And you will win the Great Resignation environment. People will leave other firms and come to you and they'll be good people.

Lauren (23:17):
Yeah. That's fair.

Bob (23:17):
Because you're only hiring good people, right?

Lauren (23:19):
Yeah. I think it comes down to values. You're upholding those firm values and that pulls through to your team and then that will pull through to your clients and all of that. 

Bob (23:30):
I know that a lot of advisors are much better at technical stuff than they are at people stuff. And they sometimes fail as a manager. I tell people two things. One is, if you're a really good technician, you need to hire somebody who's a really good business manager. There needs to be the visionary and the implementer. And the implementer is the person who handles that staff environment. And the second is you need to turn over a lot of the decision-making to the next generation and let them create the firm that they ultimately want to inherit. Don't stand in their way. And guess how many people take my advice? There was that one guy in, I think he was in Iowa, and I'm not sure about that person in Rhode Island. You know, it tends to fall on deaf ears because a lot of people are just not willing to change.

Lauren (24:22):
That's easier said than done, right? I think that's right. And contextually, you don't always realize how intrinsic that can be into just the day-to-day and minute-to-minute decisions. 

Bob (24:35):
It's change. And it sometimes goes against the mindset that brought somebody into the business to begin with. I wanted to be a technician. I didn't wanna be coddling all these damn people.

Lauren (24:46):
That's right. But it's important to recognize that. And then delegate or die if it's not the right fit. How I sort of like to describe it to people is, if you've got an orchestra, each person has their own specialty and it's the music that comes together where you see you've got something brilliant. But without the delegation, without building the team, it can fall flat.

Bob (25:11):
So that's a good way to do it. If you're in your consulting area, you're getting people to change. You're doing better than I am with my writing, I have to tell you.

Lauren (25:18):
Well, it's one of those things where I think you can all throw things out there, but it ultimately connects to the business strategy. And that decision-making and the buy-in from the team. So it's like I said, easier said than done. So, I can't let you off the hook without one more question. So cryptocurrency has been a trend. I feel like when we talk with firms, it's more of a shiny object for clients. And so they are having a lot of inbound requests around crypto in general. And, I’d just love to hear your thoughts on this. What does cryptocurrency mean for firms in the future and what are you hearing and seeing?

Bob (26:00):
I really think cryptocurrency is the most vexing issue facing financial planning right now. So of course I've been asked for my opinion and you really have to look at what cryptocurrency was intended to be. Let's start with Bitcoin, because I think that's kind of where clients are asking. Where in any of the manifestos written about Bitcoin, where in any of the intentions for what Bitcoin was supposed to be, did it say that it would be an investment? Or did it say that it would be a get-rich-quick investment? Bitcoin was created to be an alternative currency that could not be debased as a medium of exchange. And the idea behind it was to replace what is a very effective but very inefficient system of fiat currencies and nowhere in there was there any mention, and I don't think there was ever any intent, for Bitcoin to be a 15% allocation in an investment portfolio.

Bob (27:13):
Now, the reason Bitcoin and some of their cryptocurrencies are being discussed in that light was because Bitcoin unexpectedly became incredibly valuable for no reason anybody I know has ever explained. And so the first thing I would say is that I don't think we're talking about an investment. So we'll start with that. I think we're talking about something that could conceivably replace the global banking system, but isn't there yet. The second thing about it, though, is that I think we all know about investments where all the money that was going to be made has been made. So, a mutual fund takes off and it rockets and it gets great five-year returns, and it's got about 12 billion in it right now. And people pile in expecting it to go to the moon the next five years.

Bob (28:06):
And it's become an index fund. It's the same thing with Bitcoin. I think most of the money that is going to be made has been made. The Johnny-come-lately who comes in after there has been a huge windfall, never experiences anything remotely like the initial windfall ever; in all the time that I've been watching investments that has never happened. And I'm just guessing that it won't happen with Bitcoin. So then the third issue, and I think it's an important issue, is what is behind any of these cryptocurrencies? Who stands behind them? And of course the answer is nobody. And so you have a question of will these go down to zero. And I think that it's such a really interesting idea that I suspect that some cryptocurrencies will survive and will become some kind of a standard, but the question is, do we know which ones? I go back as far as Lotus 123, which was the standard in spreadsheets, and everybody assumed that would be the survivor.

Bob (29:14):
And it wasn't. There was Ashton-Tate that had its own database program that was the market leader for years. And the company disappeared. So if you own crypto as an allocation, you probably should diversify. So what does that mean when you diversify? Well, there's a non-trivial chance if you own nine or 10 different currencies that seven or eight of them will go to zero and disappear and no matter how much return you get from the other one, two or three, it's not gonna make up for the other investments going to zero. So I would suggest that if you wanna speculate, if you wanna go with it, the play money that advisors are allowing their clients to do, maybe that's all right. But if you're giving advice on something that probably shouldn't be considered an investment in the context of their overall financial plan, where does this fit? It's three times as volatile as any stock. It's not backed by anything. And so if you’re set with your financial needs now, we talk to you, then maybe this is something that you can consider, but if you're not, then a little more safety might be called for. That's the sum total of what I think about the cryptos. 

Lauren (30:44):
Wow. Well, thank you so much for your time. I feel like we could, as I said before we started the call—we were chatting and discussed that we could probably be here for a very long time. 

Bob (30:56):
I think it’s good that we finish this asking. I'm pretty sure they're ready to get on with their lives.

Lauren (31:01):
I could keep poking you with more questions, but, I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit more about not only your background, but insights on the future of the industry at large. I appreciate your time.

Bob (31:14):
All right. Well, thank you for having me.

Lauren (31:15):
Absolutely. Thank you, Bob.

‍We talked with Wendy about:

• The gap between financial planning and mortgages
• The critical need for education in the reverse mortgage sector
• Tools and resources for staying on top of reverse mortgage trends 

We talked with Wendy about:
Despite not “growing up” in the mortgage industry, Wendy Peel joined the sector in 2015 from a technology and marketing perspective. However, she quickly found an interesting challenge in the lack of education regarding reverse mortgages in America. Through her work with BlackFin Consulting and the newly launched Age in Place Coalition, she’s embracing that challenge and working to make reverse mortgages more accessible. 

Featured Resources 

• “2021 HW Marketing Leader: Wendy Peel”
• “What is a Reverse Mortgage?”  by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  
• BlackFin Group
• BlackFin Group LinkedIn
• BlackFin Group Facebook
• BlackFin Group Twitter 
• BlackFin Group YouTube
• ReverseVision
• National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association
• Reverse Mortgage Self-Evaluation: A Checklist of Key Considerations

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Wendy’s LinkedIn page. 

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):
All right. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so glad to have you here. So I was just getting ready here, and goodness, you have such an incredible background. So just looking at some of your 20, 21 awards. You've been selected as one of the most powerful women in FinTech, which is incredible. Mortgage Woman magazine, looks like you're featured there, and you are a HousingWire Marketing Leader. The list just goes on and on. So we're excited to hear more about your background, but also dig in a little bit more into some of the changes you've been able to make in the industry. So I'll just pass it over to you. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you got to where you are today.

Wendy (00:45):
Oh, thank you, Lauren. Thank you for having me with you today. I'm very honored to be here. And, yeah, I get a little embarrassed with the awards, I have to say, because I feel like I'm just doing what I'm passionate about. And the fact that people are noticing is really kind of icing on the cake. I go back to financial services. I am not someone who grew up in the mortgage industry where a lot of executives go back generationally. I came into the space, really in a more of a tech way; a recruiter found me and there was this company called ReverseVision that was looking to take reverse mortgages more mainstream. 

Wendy (01:41):
And I'll be honest with you. I did not know that much about them or the industry, but from my marketing and communications background and sales background, I dug into some research and I was fascinated by the demographic and I was fascinated that not more is understood. And so I found this to be a really interesting challenge. And the more I learned, the more passionate I got about honestly, retirement in America. And at this point in my career, I'm with a consulting firm called BlackFin now where I'm really out there, helping companies mainstream reverse mortgage lending, from how they think about talking to a borrower to why they should have this as another lending program within their ecosystem of technology. So it's near and dear to my heart at this point. And if somebody would've told me 10 years ago this is what I'd be doing, I don't know that I would've believed them, but I'm loving every minute of it.

Lauren (02:53):
And how were you able to level up to what's happening within the mortgage and lending sector? Just to fast forward to where you are today? 

Wendy (03:05):
Well, I was very fortunate that I had a CEO and president who really did give me the license to go learn, to do things differently. He really inspired people to think differently. So when I came into this sector, it was very siloed and it is still more siloed than it needs to be, but I had the ability to go and study what was working, what wasn't working and more importantly, the changes that have been happening inside of the mortgage industry. As we all know, 2008, the big financial crash, all of banking and mortgage had pretty much a negative connotation. So why was it in 2015 that reverse mortgages still had somewhat of a negative connotation, but the rest of mortgage and lending was starting to be seen as a little more favorable when both sides had a lot of regulatory change? And what I found was there just was no education out there. So, marketing can take the shape of many forms and education became really critical, which led us to starting to have user conferences. Part of it was for software, but another big, big part of it was just educating the people in the industry on what a reverse mortgage is, and more importantly what it isn't. So that's kind of how I got to where I am now, I guess.

Lauren (04:56):
That's fair. Half the battle sometimes is just that awareness. I feel like in working with other financial companies, part of it is not just educating internally, but externally the end client as well. So that's fair. I'd love to actually talk a little bit more about your time at ReverseVision. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what you were able to do there within the space?

Wendy (05:28):
Yes. So one of the things I'm most proud of is our user conference. We did three years of those and the first year was as anything new, we learned a lot and the content was king. Everything was, the content was gonna be king. And honestly, my marketing director at that time, Kelly Callier, I couldn't have done it without her. The two of us rolled up our sleeves and put this on. And people were very, very happy to have a space where they could talk openly and still learn. By the second year we were sold out and in the third year, we were sold out. So it was exciting to start thinking differently and getting feedback from loan officers and executives on how do we move the needle in retirement? So we have this financial tool that is in the mortgage market, but it really does tie to retirement or even insurance products.

Wendy (06:39):
It’s a bigger financial bubble. I would call it a financial bubble where you wanna leverage your mortgage. Maybe if it makes sense to you, how would you go about doing that? And there's what's called sequence of returns risk, which is one of the ways that you could leverage your equity. Financial planners talk about that all the time, but there's still a gap between financial planning and mortgage. So it's an education both directions, for referrals, for the loan officers. And now I'm gonna go to the tech part of all this, the very cool thing was technology was changing in leaps and bounds every year. Gone are the days of paper. We have digital mortgages. And what I found was everybody had a different definition for what the digital mortgage is, which is exciting. Point of sale solutions, what’s gonna happen to loan officers?

Wendy (07:45):
There was just a lot of change and anytime there's a lot of change, it can be scary, but there's always opportunity. And so what I really got to focus on with our product team was how do we take a reverse mortgage and mainstream it, and it has to happen at truly the tech level, because the way loan officers work, they work with pricing engines. They work with loan origination systems. So how do we go from taking a reverse mortgage origination system and making it aligned within a traditional mortgage system? So there's only a couple of key differences. The document sets are different, but the way the tech works to generate the document set isn't necessarily different. The calculations are different, but it's public data math. So why is it being siloed over?

Wendy (08:47):
And so going through, I would say a solid year and a half of really investigating this, what I came to see is the tech is there. And there's a couple of companies now that have built out the tech. And one of the reasons I shifted from a tech company to consulting is because at this point, it's how do we get this into lenders or the financial institutions to be able to mainstream it from an operational perspective? We've got all the building blocks there, but you need to have some expert help. You put those building blocks to just have a reverse mortgage show up like any other mortgage if some is 62 or older, and they're trying to refinance a home. Why isn't that being offered? I know that when I purchased my home, I had several different types of loans.

Wendy (09:49):
So the technology is now there, but what isn't there is the training and the actual internal, I would say, consulting of the different stakeholders to just understand how to do it, and then train the loan officers. It's an FHA loan. How come it’s an FHA loan? There's FHA guidelines. You do other FHA guidelines. It's not as unusual as people thought it would be. And the regulations have changed so much to where it's so safe for the borrowers and so safe for the lenders from a reputational risk. I mean, it used to be okay, what is this, right? It's where the bank owns your home or you're gonna take the house away once they pass away or the heirs don’t get the property. All of that is myths. It's very much a loan on your home, but you still own the home. You can make a payment or not make a payment. It's been around since the ‘80s, the Reagan administration. It's safe. It's a way that a lot of people could have a better quality of life and retirement, and most people really do wanna age in place. So I don't even know if I answered your question on that. I just kept going, cause I get very passionate.

Lauren (11:11):
No, it's good. You can see the passion too, and you've hit it at so many angles, right? It's the foundational level of just what it is, but then how is technology gonna keep up with what's happening today and what does that actually mean? And how does that actually hit the end user for how they would interface with that offering too? So, where are we now? What do you feel like the status is of things now? What's kind of the pulse on being able to dial up the education within the industry, and outside, and then what's sort of the status on the SaaS side of things. 

Wendy (11:52):
Well, there's a several pronged approach right now that I'm putting forth. I'm working on a state of reverse mortgage report that I'll be putting out in the next three to four weeks. It gives financial institutions a deeper dive of what we just talked about at every end. Secondarily, like I said, there are tech companies now who have put the technology in place to where, with the right guidance, we can actually mainstream this from a loan origination standpoint. And then from the public relations and education endpoint I'm launching with the BlackFin Group what's called the Age In Place Coalition. And you'll appreciate this, Lauren, with your background. The most relevant campaign that I have seen over my years, as far as people coming together for education would be Got Milk?

Wendy (12:57):
Everybody knows Got Milk? It wasn't from a specific dairy farm. It was from a dairy farm coalition and it was to educate and they had a three-point agenda on what they needed to overcome objection-wise. So I've taken that and I've modeled it into what's called an Age In Place Coalition. We will have information for the end users and we'll have information for accountants. Yes, you can put a reverse mortgage in a trust. Most people don't know this, so there's attorneys that need to be educated, financial planners and loan officers. But most importantly, the consumer really needs to be educated. In 2021, I was looking at the HMDA data and this is very disturbing to me, 46% of the denied loans. So we take that 46% and move this into another little bubble; of those, more than 70% were in the demographic who got denied of HECM. Now in originations, HECMs were less than 1% of all originations.

Wendy (14:17):
So we had people trying to refinance because they probably wanted a lower payment or they wanted to leverage their equity. Right? And they didn't qualify. And nine outta 10 times they weren't even shown another option. And so lenders, financial institutions looking for the opportunity to serve their customers for life, they have that right in front of them with interest rates rising. This isn't a rate-sensitive population. There's very different needs. A lot of times they say, think of it like a first-time homebuyer. The first-time homebuyer really needs flexibility in a different way to buy their first home. When you wanna age in place, you need flexibility in a different way. You want to be able to access your equity to use it as you see fit. And that equity actually is tax free.

Wendy (15:18):
But when you're leveraging it, it's actually worth more than if you were to take it out of some other asset, because you're not paying taxes on it. So there's so many advantages that people just don't understand. And what makes me really sad is, there were quite a number of Americans that really were looking to do something differently and they didn't even know they had an option because the only place they can get that option is from lenders who lend money on housing. And so there's this Catch-22 right now. And I think there's a huge opportunity. It's the largest cohort in America, people retiring. We're getting into the biggest wave right now with COVID and with what's happening in the world and everything else. We have to start looking at things differently as a society.

Lauren (16:18):
That's absolutely fair. And you're leaning on those trusted allies, right? Your financial planners and others that are gonna be able to help guide and be able to provide that advice. I can see the why in it, right? Like the opportunity for a better life by being able to provide that knowledge and access. 

Wendy (16:41):
I have one group of people that I work with where unfortunately there's a lot of divorce happening in this demographic right now. So what do they do? How do you split that asset? And then go and try to buy something new? This is a simple thing. My people need to understand you can actually purchase a home with a reverse mortgage. So this gives the equity to purchase a home and they both get to keep their lifestyle. So there's so many uses that again, it's the education component. At first, it was the technology component. Now it's the education component. And interestingly enough, this demographic uses technology more than any other demographic when it comes to banking and tying their assets and things together from some of the point of sale technologies that are out there. They have been studying this and this demographic will tie their assets through an online application. They're fine doing it. I mean, my mother's 77 and she banks online, she uses Venmo. She knows what she's doing. I mean, some of the myths that we think about the demographic just aren't there anymore.

Lauren (18:00):
Yep. That's absolutely fair. So I feel like we work with a number of wealth management firms. And so many of them are moving or trying to move away from paper and all of that. And so, I think just with COVID too, it's just a trend. And I think sometimes we don't give folks enough credit. So, are those conferences still happening that you had had put together before? 

Wendy (18:25):
They are not happening now. I have had some folks ask me if we would be willing to do that again. And I would do that again. It was fantastic. Right now, my sleeves are rolled up to get the Age In Place Coalition up and going, but it would be something that we would look into doing, probably in 2023, and kick those back off again. And I think we'd have a much more cross-functional group of folks that would come in, because again, the agent place is for all types, it's not just for lenders, it's for attorneys, it's for financial planners. And get more folks together and get more again—Got Milk?—get more information to the consumer. Because at the end of the day, the consumer is the one who really benefits from understanding if leveraging equity makes sense for them in retirement.

Lauren (19:24):
Yeah. That makes sense. And also what's exciting to me about what you're sharing is sometimes there's conferences that are just segmented with a particular type of person or type of industry, right? Just bankers or just this and just that. But you're bringing together folks that are gonna be able to refer business and then have that shared knowledge base, which is exciting. I think about everything—this my marketer hat going on—but being so digital, right? You know that for consumers there's so many options for just communicating through various pathways, whether it's ads or video or all kinds of things, to be able to help reach them. 

Wendy (20:02):
It's an exciting time right now. I mean, technology and social media have come to a place where it's very mainstream. It's not scary. And it's not just for the young. And I think that right now, the next couple of years could be really exciting. I know that your viewers and your customers know this, Lauren, the greatest transition of wealth in the history of the world is happening over this next 10 years. So things are gonna change and you can be a leading indicator in the change or you can kind of wait for it to happen. And I like the thought of thinking differently about things; it's exciting to me. I get excited every day thinking differently and to your point, bringing different people together to solve some of these problems because there's a lot of people that need to and want to retire, but don't think they could afford to. And truthfully as an economy, we need people to retire. You need the younger groups, the millennials, to get into the higher paying jobs so that the cycle of the economy continues. So this is complex things we're talking about right now, and the more people that want to talk about 'em the better. I certainly don't think I have all the answers or anything like that. I do happen to have a little niche that a lot of people haven't really thought about before. 

Lauren (21:42):
Absolutely. So I know you had talked about some of these kinda white papers you're working on, to be able to look for those that will be rolling out. What other things or what other resources have people wanted to learn more either that are upcoming or perhaps, places that people could go to learn a little bit more either about the work you're doing either now or previously, or just in the industry at large?

Wendy (22:08):
For the industry at large, I'm a big fan of NRMLA, the National Reverse Mortgage Lending Association. They have a lot of articles that they've done with the Council on Aging and studies and things like that. My group, the Blackfin Group, definitely please come take a look there. That's where these kinds of papers are if you'd like to see them, or you can email me directly. I'm an evangelist. I will talk to anybody who wants to talk about reverse mortgages, which is just funny right now, cuz I did not expect this to be my passion in life and it just so much is my passion in life. And most of the lenders out there that offer a reverse mortgage that are reverse-centric only have really good information as well.

Wendy (23:04):
I definitely challenge people to look at some of the articles out there because there's more and more. And when I started in this vertical, a little interesting fact is more than 70 to 80% of the ads or stories or anything written about this industry were pretty negative. And these days, if you go look and you were to measure it between being agnostic or positive, it's about 80 to 90%, either agnostic or positive and agnostic is fine with me. Cause that means it's just fact based. There's still some fringe misinformation out there, but there's gonna be that with anything. So the tide has turned; I will say the tide has turned.

Lauren (23:59):
Yeah, well you know, all things take time, right? And sometimes it comes down to education, or there's a bad headline or this and that, you know? And so you're right, it all shifts. So, anything else we should be on the lookout for as far as trends or resources or anything else you'd like to share too?

Wendy (24:20):
Age In Place Coalition. Definitely look for that. There'll be a launch like I said in the next three to four weeks. And again I think that's gonna be the big thing over the next year, that education component and we will be out and about everywhere we can be talking about it. And thank you Lauren so much for letting me have a platform with you and the work you're doing. Thank you so much.

Lauren (24:51):
Oh no, absolutely. Thank you for sharing your passion with us and also helping to educate folks that are tuning in to learn a little bit more about the work that you do and providing some resources to stay on top of the trends and also have some context for where it's been, where it's going, and all the important work that that's being done. So we appreciate all that you do. And thank you for your time today.

Wendy (25:13):
Thank you.

Lauren (25:15):
Thanks again.

From a young age, Danica Castro knew she wanted to work directly with people. It’s what originally drew her to the hospitality industry and pursuing a degree in hotel and restaurant management. In her pursuit to live a purpose-driven life, she’s shifted her career and industry to be able to work in a role that values relationships. 

Now, she’s able to use her passion for connecting with people in her position as the new brand coordinator at Out & About Communications.  

Taking on a New Challenge

After obtaining her degree from Northern Arizona University, Danica quickly realized she could not work a desk job that requires little interaction with others. This is how she found herself in the chemical sales industry, working directly with clients to ensure their needs were met. After 14 years in this role, she decided it was time to change gears but knew she still needed a position that valued relationships. After her first interview, Danica knew Out & About was the place for her to be able to do just that. 

As a lifelong learner, Danica was ready for a new challenge in an environment where every project and client is unique. As a relationship-driven person, she appreciated joining a team that provided her support to dive right in. With Danica, it all comes back to a foundation of trust and connection. She’s been able to build this not only with clients but with the rest of the Out & About team.

What You Can’t Tell Just From Looking at Her

Danica tries to embody the saying, “Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” In her life, this led her to embrace amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities such as running with the bulls in Spain, while she was studying abroad. Despite the crowds, being alone, her mental and physical fatigue, and the paella she consumed the night before, she knew she was able to persevere and achieve her bucket list goal. To this day, she is grateful for taking risks and experiencing all that life has to offer. 

We’re excited to have Danica join us! Learn more about her and the rest of our team on our team page. 

Jimmy Lim was intrigued by marketing before he even had a word for it. As a young boy, he always found himself examining products, fascinated by the wording of advertisements and affected by the way brands made him feel. 

When he got older, he could finally put a word to it: marketing. This fascination stayed in the back of his head as he attended college in Singapore to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sociology and English. After graduating, he was finally able to pursue his passion in the marketing world and now steps into the role as the Out & About marketing director. 

From Consulting to Finding a Team

When he started his career in Singapore, Jimmy worked in public relations before eventually transitioning to the marketing world. From there, he was involved in several major brand launches. He decided it was time to take what he learned working with major corporations to instead help small businesses reach their goals. When he moved to the United States in 2018, he launched his own marketing consulting service. 

Through his consulting work in the industry, Jimmy kept hearing about Out & About. In fact, he heard about the team and its positive energy before he knew much about the company. When the time came, he felt it was the best possible fit to make the transition from private consulting to working on a team. He’s excited to contribute his knowledge and skill set to develop strategies for clients and Out & About to reach new levels. 

What You Can’t Tell Just From Looking at Him

Jimmy started his career in the fashion and beauty industry. That experience fueled one of his personal passions: fragrances. Now, he owns over 60 bottles of different perfumes and colognes. Jimmy enjoys exploring different scents and plans to keep growing his collection! 

With a clear purpose and influential industry leaders behind him, Knut Rostad founded the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard in 2011. Now, as president, he provides insights into how the institute began and how it has evolved over the years in terms of community and message. 

In the interview, we discuss with Knut: 

• The mission-driven beginning of the institute 
• The importance of creating a support network  
• Why the institute now focuses on “plain language” in messaging

Featured Resources 

• The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard
• The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard LinkedIn
• Fiduciary Law in the 21st Century by Tamar Frankel
• Jack Bogle’s Legacy
• Real Fiduciary

• Practices for advisors and planners
• Fiduciary Common Sense: Why consumers should hire a fee-only advisor or planner 

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Knut’s LinkedIn page. If you enjoyed this interview, learn more about the programs the institute offers advisors on its website.

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):

So let's go ahead and dive in. How did you start the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard? What sparked this idea, and how'd you get it going?

Knut (00:12):

Well, let me start with what sparked the idea, because it took a little while between the spark and the ignition, shall we say? I came to the world of investment advice sort of mid-career, this was over 20 years ago. And I came at it through a wonderful advisor in Northern Virginia by the name of Don Rembert, who's now 83, I think, and is somewhat retired, but he'll never retire. He was one of those fee-only planners from literally the mid-’70s who was out advocating for fiduciary advice and as a matter of course, he would walk around with a copy of the Uniform Prudent Investor Act, which was a pretty darn good sort of summary of what it meant to be a fiduciary. And so that's what he did. And I started working with him as a marketing advocate. Frankly, he would give it away to anybody who would take it. So that's what started it, literally in the late 1990s. And we did different things over the next several years before we actually formed, 10 years ago, but that was the spark.

Lauren (01:52):

Wonderful. And then now that you've got it going, how are you helping to live that out? You know, what sort of things have you put into place to enter that space?

Knut (02:03):

Well, I'll get to that in a second, but we are above and beyond public policy entrepreneurs, and you understand by definition what it means to be an entrepreneur, because that's what you do. And so as a part of that, timing is really important. And the institute, actually the beginnings of it, came two years before. Now we're in 2009 and in 2009, in June of 2009, the Obama administration Treasury Department said that all brokers should work at a level to meet a fiduciary standard. And that was the beginning of a group before that said that there should be a special interest group, a single interest group that did nothing else except to educate and advocate for fiduciary practices and principles for investors, to investors, to advisors and to policymakers.

Knut (03:20):

And so our beginning actually was in June 2009. And when several of us got together at a conference and just sort of said, you know, there should be a group that does this, and we formed it. And the point of that little bit of the story is that it is timing. And in 2009, with the new Obama administration, fiduciary was in the air and was much talked about in a sense, much more talked about then than it is now. So that was the real beginning of it then. 

Lauren (04:01):

And how do you feel you've been able to keep that alive?

Knut (04:07):

You know, it’s a lot by luck and a lot by my background, an undergraduate degree in political science and then a graduate degree in business, an MBA, and part of marketing 101 that I recalled was about the importance of starting a venture with a purpose, with a clear purpose, which of course is very much in the air now, but also the significance of having individuals involved whose very stature in position and reputation spoke volumes and sent messages.

Knut (04:54):

And we were very fortunate that very early on, I literally made a cold call to the office of John C. Bogle, the former chair of Vanguard. And I said that we had started this group and I wanted to talk to him about it. And there's no other reason for him to take my call because I wasn't in his Princeton network or his school network, but he said I'm giving a speech in two months in Washington on fiduciary, come up to my office and let's talk. You know, it sounds happenstance and in a sense it was, because that conversation started a relationship that ended until he passed away two years ago, excuse me, three years ago. And he served on our advisory board, but the point is, we were able to attract real luminaries in the world of investing.

Knut (05:54):

And one of our first events was to put on a day-long program in New York City at the museum of finance on the legacy of Jack Bogle. And we had the most respected academic and former regulators there with us, including Paul Volcker, who was a giant in this world. And so the answer to your question, and probably a little bit more words than you wanted, was we were fortunate to get certain people involved that sent hugely important messages about who we are, why we existed, and what we wanted to do. And so that was extremely important. And when you start there, putting the pieces together becomes a whole lot simpler, frankly, because when you've got individuals like that involved, they have an understanding of what you are trying to do without necessarily knowing who you are—getting behind that mission.

Knut (07:18):

So anyway, that was the beginning. And Jack served on our board of advisors for years. He joined us at meetings at the SEC and it's hard to appreciate sort of how much he meant to the world of investors. I mean, there's no one like him in the industry today, frankly, and partly that's understandable because he was a product of his time. But anyway, that was extremely important in terms of getting introduced into the marketplace and people understanding who you were and what you were doing.

Lauren (08:17):

Well today, even, you look at your world of advisors and the folks that you have just on your website. The connections you've been able to make—you used the word luminaries earlier, right? These are names that carry weight in the industry, have influential voices. So it's been very impressive how you've been able to pull that group together and how you go about it. 

Knut (08:40):

You know, I say it's luck and yes, it was, I mean, Jack Bogle didn't have to take my call 12 years ago. I don't know how things would have gone if he didn’t; things would've been very different, frankly, but he took my call. We met, we had the event, and it turned out by most people that were there as being a very good event. So that was the starting point. Now today, fast forward, of course, you know the field and the world has changed. And we're very fortunate to have individuals like Luis Aguilar, only the third SEC commissioner selected by both parties in this political world, but he genuinely is a fiduciary in terms of his advice.

Knut (09:47):

And so, we have Tamar Frankel. I know most people say, well, who's Tamar Frankel? Well, I call her the godmother of fiduciary law in the Western world. And she frowned at me when I said that, because of who she is, she truly is humble. Tamar Frankel was born in 1924,25 and grew up in Israel. She started out there, which was pretty tumultuous, and came over here, I think in the late ‘60s and started her academic career, her first job, and talk about humility, she was the first woman professor of law at Boston University.

Knut (10:40):

And she was put in the basement of the building because she was a woman. I've only known her for 12 years; I just feel fortunate to have known her for this long, but she's extraordinarily humble and does not have an iota of bad feelings because she was put in the basement. She said, Knut, this made me closer to the books and it made my research easier. She always saw the positive, no matter what. So I just feel so fortunate to have had a little piece of experience with her because she's on our board and she calls me about every other week if we don't speak and asks, Knut, what can I do to help you?

Knut (11:40):

She is the leader of fiduciary law in the Western world. And she's asking me what she can do to help me. And it just makes me feel just unbelievably fortunate. So we have had those individuals. Phyllis Borzi, different category, but the same thing. She was put on this earth to serve investors, after she was an English teacher. I said, Phyllis, that's one of the reasons I love you, because you know how to write plainly and clearly, and so many people in the world of finance don't or can't, or either of the two. So yes, we are very fortunate. And when you have leaders like that associated with you, it makes attracting other individuals, other firms, that much easier, because that's a screen of sorts.

Knut (12:49):

So anyway, this is at a strategic level in terms of communications. What does it mean to have Frankel and Dorseyi and Aguilar associated with your organization? Well, it means that you are extraordinarily fortunate and that's what I feel. And so that's what has been a huge part in attracting others, our advisor members who have become real fiduciary advisors and the others on the advisory board. And I haven't even mentioned Ron Rhoades. There is no other person today who has written more and understands better as both an academic scholar and as a practitioner, he also is a practicing advisor, than Ron Rhoades, on what fiduciary means and what its background is. Really, no one. And we've been fortunate to have lots of scholars involved in our programs. And so we just feel very, very, very fortunate.

Lauren (14:07):

It's a very impressive group. So I think one of the hardest things to do, right, is to build that center of influence, or that gravity, to have a board with talent that can help to challenge the organization and push it forward as it aligns with the mission. And so it's impressive to see what you've been able to build.

Knut (14:27):

Well, actually you hit on something that is probably another side to this. Notwithstanding the luminaries, there is still the basic organizational task, as you were referenced, as you allude to, of building an organization and building out programs and events and what we're going to deliver. Sometimes some people may think that we don't need any help because we've got all these luminaries involved. When in fact, we are representing a view of advice that only a minority of firms frankly adhere to. And so we are a minority and we understand that in this larger world of broker dealers and larger world of dual registrars, our message of fiduciary, I think, strikes some people as being too, shall we say, old fashioned? And in a certain respect, they are correct. Because you, by definition, are avidly paying attention to what is happening in the industry, you know traditional lessons on fiduciary are not the topic de jour. It's Robinhood, and what does Robinhood represent? It's the other end of the spectrum, frankly, but, uh, anyway,

Lauren (16:32):

Well, I've seen a little bit of the interaction when you had rolled out the fiduciary standard best practices, that code of conduct and partnering with RIAs, and was able to see, kind of be read into, or see a bit of behind the scenes about that rollout, right. And the messaging, you talked about that earlier, you all have that locked in, right. You have the press releases ready, you've got the communications ready, you've got people teed up. And I'm sure that probably those best practices also just come from knowing communications and messaging, having great people around you, but how do you ensure that messaging is uniform across the board? And that maybe it doesn't have that kind of older feel, but if there is something that's really invigorating and holding people to that higher standard and those best practices, I'd just love to hear a little bit more about how you all think about messaging and communicating as you talk to the broader audiences.

Knut (17:38):

That is a really good question. And, I guess it's easiest for me to think about it in a global perspective, as I have tried to become better at our messaging over time and what I mean by that is I have a much greater respect for sensitivity for what we learn from the plain language experts. And so, this is not per se messaging, but it is such a key piece of it in the world we work in that is dominated by regulatory speak. And which sometimes almost seems to be the opposite from plain language, frankly. And so it's sometimes not stated that our outreach to investors or advisors and regulators, those are our three main audiences, is driven by the idea that the ordinary investor on Main Street can understand what we're saying.

Knut (19:11):

So what that means to us is if you look at our real fiduciary practices, which are on our website, now they are written so that an investor could read them and actually understand what they mean without having to hire an attorney because they legal and this always made sense to me, but it makes more sense to me today than it did five years ago, because I realized how much out there, and you realize this in your role as a marketing expert, how much content out there in the world of investing is not made to be understood by the ordinary person on the street, frankly. I think it's not made for that. And so when we look at our real fiduciary practice, when we look at our common sense, fiduciary common sense on our website, again, we have tried to make it understandable.

Knut (20:21):

And so this may not be exactly what you were looking for, but that sort of drives our messaging all across the board in terms of what is the common denominator and it's making it understandable to the ordinary investor. So the whole issue from a regulatory point of view, and I don't know how much of this you interface with, the whole issue from a regulatory point of view, the big problem with regulation and retail investors is they're confused. That's sort of the operating premise. And I say, no, that's wrong. And we've written extensively on why this is wrong. What is true is that the messages they get are confusing and that's a different take on it. And so the problem is not that per se, investors don't understand, it is per se that the message they're getting is confusing. 

Lauren (21:29):

You're right. Some of the hardest things to do is make things simple. Your thinking to make things simple can be very challenging. But that is, I think, where you actually get traction, and you can get going with that. So it's exciting. So there are some themes, really, around the essence of building an all star board, right. People that you trust that you can turn to that can help move things forward. And then in doing so, as you're moving forward, there's a unified front on the simplicity of the messaging. So that if someone were to pick a piece of paper off the ground and they were to read it, they would at least understand what was going on. And it wasn't totally out of context. 

Knut (22:14):

Yes, that is exactly it. And as I say, I didn't appreciate when we started how important that piece is to what we are doing, what we're aiming to do, but it is, it absolutely is. As I said, I didn't appreciate how much I think investors are given a bum wrap in the industry by many people because they're just assumed to be confused about everything. And so almost why bother even to try to communicate with them. And I think that's a bum wrap, but I think more basically, it's a serious problem if our assumption is that our major audience of investors doesn't understand anything. 

Lauren (23:11):

Yeah. Be able to digest it to make sense for decision-making.

Knut (23:14):

Exactly. Exactly. 

Lauren (23:19):

Well, you're doing powerful work. And like I said, being able to see a little bit of behind the scenes of some of the rollout, and then also just publicly what you have on your website and the connections you have been able to build, and the work you're doing. So what is it like on a day to day? And what's next for the institute? What do you see on the horizon as key? 

Knut (23:43):

Well, for focus areas, after just talking about how important it is to aim our messaging for the ordinary investor, I'll say that our strong point has not been frankly, to get out and reach the ordinary investor. It's not just because that's a massive audience, and again, this is your bailiwick now, not mine, frankly. There are lots of ways to get to smaller parts of this with the world of social media that are less daunting than they were before social media, frankly. But we think that we've done fairly well aiming and getting our message across to regulators and policymakers, those who are interested in our message. And we think to some degree that we've done the same with advisors. We need to find ways to do the same thing to consumers, because that's where the action is. And, again, this is your bailiwick. So I'll let you finish this point in terms of the importance of getting to the consumer audience. 

Lauren (25:03):

Well, the masses are always hard, right? But I think you have to sort of start at the core. In those conversations and being aligned there, which is impressive to see the work that you all have been doing. So that's sort of the next path, opening up that channel sort of behind it, the folks that may be more familiar with it, the policymakers, the RIA firms, etc. And then exploring next steps to more of the public information of what it means to be a fiduciary.

Knut (25:36):

Right. We stand back and the way that I frame it is why should an investor or consumer, because my financial planning, friends remind me that in the world of financial planning they think of consumers more than they think of investors because of when you, and again, you know this extremely well, when you look at their array of services, the investment part of it is just one piece of it as opposed to everything else. So getting to the broader audience of consumers is the key challenge. And that's fair. 

Lauren (26:15):

All in due time, right?

Knut (26:17):

Yes, all in due time, but I don't think I've responded to part of your question. We stand back and say, why should a consumer care? Why should the consumer think it matters that they hire an individual who is a real fiduciary that practices as a fiduciary, as opposed to those that don't. So that's where we start the process from, thinking about how it is that we can inform consumers of that answer, that question, why they should care. And then, what is it that makes a fiduciary advisor different from those that are not fiduciary advisors and that's what it comes down to. And so that sort of is the focal point of our thinking about messaging for consumers generally.

Lauren (27:13):

Yep, that's fair. And getting that education out into the world in a digestible way as we were talking about earlier, too, right? Where it's an engaging way and it sticks. So, very good. Well, I appreciate you sharing a little bit about how things got going, being able to build the board, and where they are today and where they're going. Any other thoughts that you would like to share?

Knut (27:42):

Well, I guess in terms of other segments or other places that we'd wanna get more involved in, is the area of students who are studying to become financial planners. We have had contacts with a number of the programs around the country, but we haven't done enough to formalize those relationships and to really see how we can help these programs in their educational process by sharing the content and the expertise and the individuals that we have involved in the institute. So that's another area that we want to pursue.

Lauren (28:33):

Mm, interesting. Well, I'm excited to hear a little bit more about it too, and I think you all have done an amazing job. You're talking about the kind of those guidelines that were released from the various RIA firms, but some of that messaging and arming them with the communication so that they can better educate their prospects and consumers in general. And then if you're thinking about the marketing hats on that funnel, they're a little deeper in the funnel, those prospects, because they're already having that conversation with the advisor, but how do you talk to kind of that top with the funnel, your general audience about this and what they should be looking for, if they're looking for an advisor to work with so that that's not off the radar and they can ask those questions or they know to ask those questions when they're finding the right match. So, very good. Well, again, thank you for your time. Really appreciate hearing a little bit more behind the scenes, and we'll make sure to include links to the website and the other resources as well below. 

Knut (29:33):

Excellent. Well, listen, thank you, Lauren, for your interest in what we're doing. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to keeping in touch as we go forward.

Lauren (29:42):

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it as well. Have a great night and we'll be in touch soon. 

‍We talked with Sydney about: 

• Advice for individuals or companies considering starting a podcast 
• The importance of creating a detailed process and workflow 
• The tools she and her team use throughout the process to create first-rate content

Kitces.com is considered one of the top “go-to” resources for financial advisors and is known for its relevant and engaging articles and podcasts. As managing editor, Sydney Squires gives insight into the processes it’s developed to be able to consistently roll out high-quality, integrated content across platforms.

Featured Resources 

• “Why Asana?” 
• “How to Start a Podcast” with Libsyn
• “Why Coast?”  
• Kitces.com
• Kitces.com Facebook
• Kitces.com Twitter
• Kitces.com LinkedIn
• Kitces.com YouTube channel 
• Financial Advisor Success Podcast 
• Apply or recommend a guest for the podcast

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Sydney’s LinkedIn page. 

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:01):

All right. Well, Sydney, thank you so much for joining us. We have been anxious to hear a little bit of background about the Kitces podcast and all that you all are doing. So why don't we just dive right in. I'd love just to hear about your experience and how did you get to where you are today?

Sydney (00:17):

Yeah, absolutely. Lauren, thank you so much for having me on board. So my process to Kitces is a little bit funny because I did not come with a financial planning background, which is what the whole company is focused on, making educational content for financial planners. I actually started out my career working in child publishing. I worked originally in educational curriculum, making a lot of content starting off with homeschooling programs and jumping into the print magazine side of it. I had a ton of fun. I have a lot of respect and love for print publishing, but especially for children's publishing, because it requires kind of those iterations on being really clever and being cute and fun. And you wanna be engaging, but not condescending and empowering. And it was a really great place to start off.

Sydney (01:24):

So the homeschooling company that I started at experienced a ton of growth in a really short amount of time and they needed managing editors to just kind of help fill slots, coordinate all the projects. So that was what I started doing fairly early on, just working with all of the other editors that had been hired as contractors and just sending things their way, helping to give feedback. That ended up being really positive. I started working a little bit more on the journalism side, on the app and media, production scheduling side. And then I kind of ended up landing at Kitces, at kitces.com. It was a funny way where COVID obviously just makes new plans for everyone, but so now I'm managing editor here.

Sydney (02:31):

I handle all of our front-facing engagement, which is basically all of our free stuff, which is a lot. That's three, 3,000-plus word articles that we run every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; that's a podcast every Tuesday; and then a second podcast every other Thursday on top of social media management and all of that. And then I manage an awesome team of writers, editors, podcast producers, graphic designers, who obviously help me with all of that. So it's a great team and we definitely keep ourselves busy.

Lauren (03:14):

It's incredible. I know before we were talking and I was sharing that there've been so many individuals that I've talked with that are just in awe about the amount of content, but it's not just about content, but how rich it is. And how much value you're putting out there. And every piece is so thoughtful and I can personally share that having worked together, going back and forth on an article, it's a lot of work, but things that look easy usually aren't easy, right? So this is what we're excited to get into today. I know there's so much content that you're covering and the focus today will really be on the podcast. And I know that is new in the world of kitces.com, all things relative. And so why did you decide to start a podcast? I mean, I heard there was some chatter about possibly starting one, it seems like there was kind of maybe crowdsourcing or interest in that, but what was a trigger for you all? And how did you get the ball rolling?

Sydney (04:22):

Yeah, so that's a really good question. I think it kind of started from two things. We're a very data-oriented company. So I think there was a certain degree of like, a lot of people are doing podcasts, they're having a lot of success with their podcasts. And so on. I think that a second aspect is that Michael's brain never stops running. I think that if Michael had it his way and I was also twice as smart, we would have like 800 new things going live on the blog all the time. Fortunately, he works with my limitations there most of the time. But I think the kind of ironic thing with choosing to jump into the podcast was financial advisory success was started in 2017. At that point we were like, podcasting had gotten big like five years before that.

Sydney (05:19):

So relative to the whole industry we were really late to the game, so at that point it was pretty easy to look and point and start to realize like, oh, people have had a lot of success with it. And the actual mechanism to trigger it was literally Michael just pulling together a list of his friends and starting to just iterate, you know? And I don't think until you really get in there that you can figure out if it's something that's sustainable or feels natural or something like that, like you can flush out like the process side and start to figure out all the stuff that you would like to have. But until you jump in and you start to figure out what those conversations actually feel like, then it's just kind of the idea. 

Lauren (06:06):

That's so fair, it's sort of this ivory tower idea. You can idea around it, then how does it actually come to fruition? And how do you get down to the heart of the conversation and how, as you moved through the podcasting world and we're figuring out what was working and what wasn't, how have you helped to manage that as part of the greater content strategy? You know, this is one element and how are you balancing that content with everything that you all have going on?

Sydney (06:34):

Yeah, so I mean literally, I joke that keeping the calendar running is my full-time job. That's just like 40 hours a week that I am sitting in there trying to figure out all those moving mechanisms. So one of the things that really helps is we track all of our articles and all of our podcasts in the same system. So that helps to give a really good overarching view. I sit down with the podcast producer and we talk and we can see the list of all the upcoming articles. We know who's already been there as a podcast guest. We try to do some sorting by topic, trying to complement each other. And one of the things that we've been trying to do increasingly is not to let things exist in a void, cuz sometimes you get a really great podcast guest and they're awesome.

Sydney (07:37):

And then like three years later they send us a note like, Hey, I would also like to write for the blog. Here's an outline. And we're like, oh my gosh, we missed out on three years of potential content with this person, you know? So I think that to kind of expand a little further on where I'm going with that, to me, one of the most important things with making sure that the articles and the podcast talk to each other and that everything flows well is to be always iterating on the podcast, or sorry, to be always iterating on the process. Just three days ago, we made a change to the podcast that’s been running for five years, to the process there, and it's something that's probably going to save us four or five hours a time.

Sydney (08:28):

Every week, you know? I think it can be really easy to just let things sit, you know? And to me that's another important part of just talking and making sure that everything gets coordinated because it's a lot of the same people doing the same stuff, you know? And so unless you are looking at it, not just from a content, but also from a process perspective, you might align one really well, but if the other's not also aligned, you can end up in trouble really quickly.

Lauren (09:02):

So you mentioned having it all in one kind of calendar. What system are you all using to see that? Is it simple as an Excel doc?

Sydney (09:13):

No, we work in Asana. 

Lauren (09:17):

We love Asana. Awesome. It's so great.

Sydney (09:21):

Yeah. So we have our editorial calendar, which shows every single step for every single article that we have broken out. And then I have a podcasting production calendar because all of the steps for that are completely different. And so then I have all of the podcasts on their links, so they show up on the calendar. So literally anyone can check at any time, even if they're not directly involved with the podcast or the articles. The whole, our overarching view, is clear both to people within our team and people outside of it. Okay. That's really fun. That's the best part. Do you wanna just talk about Asana for the rest of the podcast? I know the automations I've made. 

Lauren (10:22):

It’s great. Yes. I know there's so many features. It's pretty amazing. We're totally Asana geeks over here too. So it sounds like you have the separate projects, if you will, inside of there for podcasts versus content or other.

Sydney (10:37):

Yeah. So they exist on separate projects and each task is one podcast and so I make it set the tasks also populate on the article one because the article one is a center one.

Lauren (10:53):

Got it. Okay, so Asana to be able to see the overarching calendar and then also to do the workflow, project management of all that's going on, and then are you all actually scheduling out the content or like when it goes live, are you natively putting it up on social media? How are you managing that side of things?

Sydney (11:20):

Yeah. So there are a couple of programs that we use. So Libsyn is the one that we use for the actual distribution, that shows up in iTunes or whatever. And then we use CoSchedule to do all of the social media.

Lauren (11:40):

I know CoSchedule too. 

Sydney (11:44):

I like CoSchedule. It is really awesome in a lot of ways. I also have many stories about the wrestling that we've done with it.

Lauren (11:55):

That's fair. It's got a lot of bells and whistles in there, you know. We have found 

that they're not all needed at least for us.

Sydney (12:03):

Yeah. I feel like CoSchedule is one of those things where I'm like, I think if I was smarter, I think I would love CoSchedule, but I'm not quite smart enough to enjoy it as much as I should. 

Lauren (12:17):

Okay. So, there's an element of live posting and then also scheduling out content as well. 

Sydney (12:27):

Yeah. Well, and I should also be more specific where we have a third-party group, Cashflow Podcasting, that we work with and they're the ones who actually do all the scheduling and they upload the show notes that you see. Which is great because I hopped in there once to try to make some edits and nearly broke everything. So I'm really happy to let them do that side of things.

Lauren (12:56):

Yeah. That's fair, to have trusted partners, there's a lot of parts and pieces, which is pretty incredible. So just to back up a little bit, so we could talk a little bit about the planning that goes into it. Kind of the calendaring, the project management internally, and then we talked a little about the end part, right? When it actually goes live, what's kind of that middle part? So once you've identified a guest, which actually I'd love to know how you are identifying guests, that's a question, but then once you've identified them, what's the pre-podcast and post-podcast communications like for that guest? So maybe we'll start with how you identify and then go through that workflow?

Sydney (13:38):

Sure. Yeah. So I guess actually, I might even start a little bit of a step before that, because I think the guests that we choose are really guided by the goal that the podcast has. So the simplest way to explain the goal of it is just to highlight success stories in the industry. These are people who went out, they started their own business in an industry that's really hard to get started and they made it, but then more specifically within that, we also try to highlight that success doesn't look the same for everyone’ everyone has a different metric, regardless of what the metric is. It's really easy to look and be like, wow, like this person's firm is so amazing and not realize that it's been really hard, you know?

Sydney (14:31):

So for selecting a guest, like I mentioned, the podcast guest list literally starts out with Michael's friends in the industry; nowadays, we kind of choose from all over. We have a place on our website where advisors can submit themselves or people that they think would be great fits for the podcast. We check out awards lists. When I went to the XYPNLIVE conference last October, I think I found two or three podcast guests that I was more or less secretly sleuthing for. But the reason that we look in so many places is because what we're really looking for is less of the person and more of the story, you know? And if you're only looking in one place, you miss out on like this whole spectrum inside of stories, cuz every spot has its blind spot.

Sydney (15:26):

So what we really do is look for someone who has achieved success, no matter what that looks like. We have interviewed consultants, people who have started their own firms and are making millions, people who have started their own firms and are making like a hundred thousand a year, people who have enterprise-level firms, people who are just solo, you know? Everyone has a really unique thing that kind of led them on their path to success. Like whether they have a unique business structure or a niche that is just bonkers. We interviewed someone when I first joined that was specialized in being a financial advisor for competitive fishermen, I think.

Lauren (16:08):

So specific, so niche.

Sydney (16:10):

I know. And, I guess there's enough of them that you can make a living off of that. Interesting. You know? But, they all have their unique story and it's really that story and that hook that we look for more than the metric of success.

Lauren (16:30):

Yes. That makes sense. Yeah. Are you each individually reaching out to them then or how is that coming about?

Sydney (16:38):

So we have a meeting with Michael where we kind of talk through to people that we would like to feature on the podcast, get them greenlit or we could ask to bring in more information, all of that. And then after that, we usually just send them the invite. At that point, we've pulled up like their ADV, so we know how big their firm is and how much they’re making, we've looked at their website, we've done the basic amount of stuff to be sure it's a real person and not someone who's pretending to be a financial advisor or anything like that. But then, yeah, we literally just shoot them the email and set up the initial call. 

Lauren (17:29):

And then what's the lead time? I guess the lead up? You have your conversation and then how does that go? I know for example with the article, there was a lot of lead-up work and then it was four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks sometimes out before things go live. So I'd be curious of what that timeline is like for you all, and how do you communicate with those individuals once you've got them on the books?

Sydney (17:59):

Yeah. So there's kind of two sides where the podcast has a little bit bigger of a buffer because we're trying to schedule the actual recording. So several weeks in advance, people will usually get on the calendar just to record about a month, ideally, in advance, three or four weeks. And then after it's recorded, it's usually four to eight weeks until they go live. We try not to let it run much longer than that because people do get so excited about being on the podcast. So then it kind of sucks if you're like languishing for months afterwards, you know? So that's weird. But on the prep side for that, our podcast producer reaches out, they do a whole prescreening, always send them a swag box that has the headset that they need, and everything like that. So we do a whole let's look and make sure that all of your technology works, which thankfully, since I've been here has not been a big deal to check that. And then once we get their technology squared, she runs them through a few practice questions and kind of creates an interview note checklist for Michael and then they're just clear until their recording date.

Lauren (19:26):

And then do you have, I mean, just with all the compliance regulations and this and that, do folks sign off on something ahead of time? Is it edited? How does that all work?

Sydney (19:41):

So I guess I'll say that for probably about 98% of people that we have on the podcast, what they say on the podcast, we may edit things down to be the length of time that we need. Like sometimes Michael has recorded for two hours and we need to be 90 minutes. So then we end up chopping a lot. But other than that, we have run into actually very few issues with compliance. We've had a few times where we've had to edit out. Michael asked a question and they're like, we actually don't feel good about saying that in front of tens of thousands of people. And then we just cut that question, like it was never asked. So that has a really friendly way of kind of helping to screen itself to make sure that people who are caught in compliance web can kind of filter out what they're comfortable with. And then every now and then we have someone who records ask if we can send it to them in advance to be checked by their compliance team, but out of the 270-plus episodes, to my knowledge that's happened like five times.

Lauren (20:50):

So at least in our experience, if it's live, it's a little different than if it's written, but these things are always changing and you get different advice from different folks. And so that's fair. 

Sydney (21:06):

And then I think a key aspect that also helps is I think at this point when a lot of people come onto the podcast, they know what they're in for, which is Michael will ask them very in-depth questions about them and their firms. So there's probably a certain degree of self-selection they're going on as well, where the people who agree and show up are the ones who are really comfortable with being really transparent, which really helps.

Lauren (21:32):

That's fair. Yeah. And they've seen others lead the way too. You said 270 something. 

Sydney (21:37):

It’s something like that. I don't know what's live right at this moment, but I think that we have 278 episodes recorded.

Lauren (21:45):

Holy smokes. That's a lot of work. And then, you mentioned the thousands of listeners, right? How did you get there? Obviously there's a base that you all had worked with, right? It's not like starting a podcast from scratch or publication from scratch. This has been in the works, but how have you promoted this? How do you keep promoting this, and kind of fueling the Google engine, if you will, and making sure you're adding valuable content. I'd love just to hear about that promotions plan, once you do go live.

Sydney (22:25):

Yeah. So there are a few things that honestly really help us. Ironically, the first one is that we publish our full 90-minute transcripts with our podcasts, which means that we have a ton of SEO-friendly headers and keywords and all of that, that kind of help people who are searching for it. Another aspect that helps is whenever we feature a big guest on the podcast, we get a huge jump in listeners and then the spike never fully comes back down. So, you know, I'm sure that you'll get a spike with me. I'm known and respected by tens of people. So that's the help that I will give. But I remember that when we interviewed Matthew Jarvis, who was really big in the financial planning industry, he gave us a spike where I think it was the first time that we broke 10,000 downloads on a single episode.

Sydney (23:31):

And then it did go down below 10,000 again, but it stayed probably 2,000 higher than it had been previously for weeks afterwards. We found really consistently that if we can get people excited about being featured on the podcast and if we can give them tools to share and to promote it themselves and even just communicate that we're excited that they were on the podcast with us—it's a process and a little nerve-wracking to sit there and get interrogated for like two hours, you know? That has almost become our best promotional strategy.

Lauren (24:19):

Yeah. Building that community. And being able to share that content, arming people, it sounds like, with the tools to be able to help promote it too. Then I'd be curious, you talked a lot about the data, right? Like all the data that's coming in, and it seems like that's not just something you're looking at with the podcast, but with the content platform at large. How often are you looking at that data coming in? I know you said you sit down with Michael, you go through the calendar and what's going on, what's working, not working, et cetera. Are you taking in those lessons learned, but what are you looking for? And are you just looking at Google analytics? Are you looking in the back end of your podcast platform? What are some of those key indicators to know if you're on target with your objectives?

Sydney (25:12):

Yeah. So our data lives in a ton of different spots. The primary one that we use for what's actually going live on the site is Google Analytics. If Asana is my first home, then Google Analytics is my second. Every single week, I'm in there and I input all the data from how people got there, how many people got there, whether or not it was SEO friendly. I don't know if your guys' site has been affected by this, but Google decided to mess with analytics twice in December and our organic search traffic tanked, and now we're making our recovery. The place where we look specifically for our podcasting data is on Libsyn, and so that will store a lot of the geographical data for the listeners, how many, for each episode. I feel like I might be freaking people out a little with how much we can track; just know that it's everyone and not just us.

Lauren (26:17):

So true.

Sydney (26:19):

So then we can really identify how many people are on the site versus just streaming it. Because if we were just looking at site numbers for podcasts, we probably would've shut it down a long time ago. That also helps us really identify when a podcast guest does phenomenally well. And then we start to look at, was this someone really well known in the industry? We had someone who got a ton of downloads because their topic was so controversial that they started a fight in our Facebook comments section, and then everyone clicked through to view it and listened to the whole thing and then came back and argued more, so it was seen by everyone. Hard to predict, but a neat thing. Like I keep saying, we need you to make some fake accounts and just start starting fights on Facebook, you know? Cause apparently that's the key to the success that we should actually be chasing.

Lauren (27:19):

Well, people wanna know what's going on. Right. You get a little look, and then are able to dig a little deeper.

Sydney (27:25):

And then when they click through and they see that it's a 90-minute thing and they're dedicated enough that they either read that whole 20,000-plus word transcript or listen to the whole thing and then get back and argue. That's when you know you've got a fanbase that cares, you know?

Lauren (27:42):

Yeah. Now I think one of the things—we were talking about this a little bit earlier—but you've got so much content. There's a lot to produce, but there's so much substance to it. And do you think that because you took the leap to be able to start this podcast, did you feel that, and do you feel that the financial services space or even within the wealth management RIA space needs more podcasts or is it more the objective that it's another platform to add more content that's of substance? What do you see out there when you look at other content platforms within the space and where do you see the gaps?

Sydney (28:26):

Yeah, that's a great question. So, and I'll admit that I'm a little bit biased in my answer because as it's probably clear at this point, I'm a very story-oriented person. So the perspective that I kind of lead with first of all, is that there's absolutely room for whatever the story is that the person has, whatever their platform needs to be to share that and I wouldn't want anyone to shy away from at least trying to get their voice out there because they feel like everything is oversaturated. I find that people really underestimate what makes them unique because like I have to live with myself 365 days a year. So in my mind I'm a pretty average person, but I did mention the tens of people who respect me, and who see the thing that's unique in me, hopefully, you know?

Sydney (29:23):

And so I think that's a really important thing. The second and perhaps a little bit more analytical angle I'll add is that there are always gaps that haven't been filled yet. Financial advisory success is a really great example, because a lot of advisors make podcasts that are aimed at their clients where it's very educationally focused and very much like, finance 101, kind of talking through and showing their expertise. I can talk with you about budgeting. I can talk with you about recessions. I can talk with you about all of that. And I'll admit that's a pretty darn full space. Financial Advisor Success is great because it's actually not aimed at clients; it's aimed at other financial advisors to create that space, but where I see a lot of gaps in particular is the financial advice industry is 80% male and 95% white, and that in itself means that there are a lot of spaces that just naturally get filled by a lot of people who have the same story, and there are different takes on the industry.

Sydney (30:38):

Everyone will have such a unique perspective on what the industry offers and what the industry needs to improve. So to me that's one of the most glaring holes out there, but I am positive that I have my own blind spots, and there's someone who's sitting there like, oh my gosh, obviously you missed that, there's this gap right here. How can I not have seen that? It's like, great, well then go and fill that gap. You saw it and I didn't, but the odds are that by the time I find you, I realize that you are actually filling the gap that I was totally going to. 

Lauren (31:17):

And then what advice would you have to someone or a company perhaps, thinking to start a podcast? You all have not only just done an amazing job with the podcast, but just the content and the information and so many elements. So what advice would you have?

Sydney (31:36):

My main piece of advice is my mantra, which is: the task is just the task. What I mean by that is I think that people can hear a lot about what I've talked about. And I've talked about subcontractors and breaking 10,000 views and pulling in big names from the industry. And they think, oh my, there's an entire team doing this and contractors and fancy programs that I'd have to pay for. And if in order for me to start, I have to do all of that. But even a lot of how Financial Advisor Success started. There was not a podcast producer, like an entire person geared toward just making podcasts when it started. There wasn't even a managing editor to schedule all of it out. When it started, it started out with the deputy editor that was doing all the prep and all the editing.

Sydney (32:27):

And then that has grown into like three different jobs now, as things have grown. And so, I think that when you're looking to start a podcast, it can get really easy to get tangled up a little bit in the weeds of all the things to expand into. I think that people should always be looking at their process once it's started and starting to figure out where they can grow, what they can improve. It was just over the last year that we chopped it from a two-hour long podcast to a 90-minute one. And that increased our views and our downloads an immense amount, you know? But in order to be able to make those choices, first we had to start. So don't make starting any more complicated than it needs to be. It's okay to be investing some things down in it, but the task is just the task, making the podcast at the end of the day has all these really daunting elements. But at the end of the day, it's sitting down and having a conversation, then sharing it out in public, you know? And so don't get daunted by all the big picture things that you lose track of like—what the thing actually is.

Lauren (33:38):

And then just to take that back, cuz I think in the marketing world sometimes, it's kind of like going to performance, right? And things are looking amazing. You're sitting there watching this performance, but there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. You've talked about some of that here. Can you share a little bit just how big the team is? Maybe a little bit of that. We'll wrap up here soon, but I just to give folks some context around what it takes. 

Sydney (34:10):

So on the editorial team, which is what I manage, we have, I'm gonna literally count, five people on it full time, and a special shoutout to Elissa, who is the oft-mentioned podcast producer in all of this. Then we have a contracted graphic designer. She's the one who makes all of our customized social featured graphics for the podcast, as well as everything we see on there and then we have our contract with the Cashflow Podcasting team. So that is everyone I interact with directly. And we have a video editor to help with the Kitces & Carl podcast, because that's also released in a video format. So I guess that's seven or eight people I interact with directly. 

Lauren (35:33):

Just on the podcast side?

Sydney (35:35):

No. Sorry. So that is everyone who does editorial. People who work really specifically with the podcast, there's me, there's Elissa, the podcast producer. And then we have Cashflow Podcasting, Candice, our video editor. And then we have Ashley Hunter, our associate editor who helps prep it in the website, helps make sure it actually goes live on YouTube and catches all of our errors before we do something embarrassing.

Lauren (36:15):

Oh my gosh. Well, it's pretty incredible. And also just a shoutout to you. Having worked firsthand with you and just seeing all the back and forth, it's incredible the attention to detail, just the thoughtfulness. It's amazing. So I've learned a lot. I know our team's learned a lot just in interacting with the Kitces team and it's fun. It's really fun. And this passion for putting out really quality work doesn't go unnoticed. So, I appreciate all you do. It's seen and it's felt and it's pretty incredible. So appreciate you sharing a little bit more behind the scenes. Is there anything else you wanna wrap up with or share you think would be valuable?

Sydney (37:06):

Well, I guess first off I'll say that I'm very fortunate to lead a very capable team of people. I think if it all came down to me to be doing all the problem solving, things would not be running nearly as smoothly. So I'm so grateful. I think that one of the best things is to be surrounding yourself with like-minded people who work really hard and have a lot of fun, you know? And then it makes hard work, not easy, but it makes it fun, you know? And then I think the last note that I will leave on is something that I alluded to a little bit earlier: the whole point with the Financial Advisory Success podcast is that it highlights that success is not always easy and success looks bright and shiny on the outside, and is often really formed through a lot of really hard work and struggle and sacrifice before it starts to turn into something that is profitable and fun.

Sydney (38:13):

And that people start to be like, oh, look at you, you just did this, you know? So I guess that kind of with that, if anyone who is listening is still in the iterating on something endlessly and trying to figure out what works and still struggling and thinking that they're just kind of shouting into the void, I guess, I just wanna say, I've been there and it will get better, and if you just keep showing up consistently, like showing up every day puts you ahead of probably 80% of people out there in this space. So show up, be consistent and know that the difficulty of getting started is something that even the most successful people have gone through and are also going through probably present tense as you're looking at their very cool, shiny, successful thing.

Lauren (39:14):

That's such good advice. It's so true. You're right. And I think more than half the battle is not just getting started, but keeping on with it. And I think something like a podcast is easy to get started, but not always keep going with, and you can apply that same kind of analogy if you will, to so many things and you're so right. Success does not come easy.

Sydney (39:38):

So yeah. A lot of times in writing, we talk about the inner editor and that in order to write, you have to turn off the inner editor. My inner editor is very loud. She is really diligent and really hard to ignore. As I've mentioned, I'm all for making a good process. I'm all for improving on things, but that always has to be after you actually know what your process is. And after the thing has actually started, if you can keep your inner editor quiet for just long enough to gain a little bit of momentum, to have someone listening in or checking out your blog and being like, Hey, I will notice if you don't post, then you can start to really iterate and start to improve the thing, but first you have to get started. 

Lauren (40:38):

That's such good advice. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I greatly appreciate it. And thank you for just sharing some of the behind the scenes. I hope this conversation will impact someone else's life or next steps or just lessons learned. And to the theme of success, it certainly takes a village and a community to learn from each other. I appreciate you sharing the story, not only your story, a little bit about your story, but then the day to day to keep the engine running. So it's pretty amazing.

Sydney (41:14):

And thank you so much again for having me on. I had a ton of fun talking through at random, and again, if you want just jump into the Asana conversation sometimes.

Lauren (41:28):

I'm all for that. Well, thank you again. Appreciate it. 

Sydney (41:37):

Thanks Lauren.

We learned more about: 

• The tools and approach she used to create and deliver the course with real-world experience (including client meetings!) 
• Her process of assembling and growing a knowledgeable team 
• The problem she thought she was solving in financial planning vs. the problem she actually solved 
• The ever-evolving curriculum and program structure of the externship 

As a result of the pandemic, many students lost their opportunity to gain real-world experience through internships and externships. Hannah Moore, CFP® and founder of Guiding Wealth, knew something needed to be done. Working with the Financial Planning Association, Hannah assembled a team and built a virtual externship to fill this void. Now, she has launched Amplified Planning, a video training resource, to further support the education of future financial planners.  

Featured Resources 

• Amplified Planning CORE Subscription 
• Online Course Creation with Kajabi 
• Amplified Planning
• Amplified Planning LinkedIn
• Amplified Planning Facebook
• Guiding Wealth  
• Financial Planning Association Learning Center
• “Top Resources for New Financial Planners”

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Hannah’s LinkedIn page or follow her on Twitter.

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):

Hannah, we are so excited to have you here. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Before the call, we're hearing a little bit about your background, which is absolutely incredible. I feel like you've lived multiple lifetimes with your career and have had so much success. We'll include a bio, and go into it a little bit more here, but for the sake of this conversation, we're gonna talk about a more recent initiative. I know you've been working on and have had tremendous success with Amplified Planning. So I just love to hear, how did this get started? I mean, what were you seeing and feeling in the market that really kind of spun up this idea to get it going?

Hannah (00:43):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, as a financial planner myself, there were so many things I needed when I first started, so much of what we've been focusing on with Amplified Planning and our work with the You’re a Financial Planner Now podcast and FPA has really been me trying to fill a need that I had in my career when I first started. And so with Amplified Planning we have two main initiatives that are going on. One is going to be the externship that we run in partnership with FPA. And then the other is our Amplified Planning Core kind of offering. And that is a new meeting every month that we share with clients, a real client meeting where they get to watch my client meeting and the good, bad, and ugly of it all, and really get that firsthand experience of what does financial planning actually look like in practice?

So how it got started, and feel free to redirect me if you want, but with the externship, we were working with FPA national, really working on their new planner initiative. So with the Your a Financial Planner Now network, we were helping again, trying to fill the need that I had in my career. And so when 2020 hit and the pandemic was coming, it was coming in full force. Nobody had an idea if this was actually gonna be a real thing yet. I mean, I remember being on some of these initial meetings and being like, y'all are overreacting. Like this is just gonna go away, like everything else does. But it didn't. And so we were in these meetings and we were really looking at how can we help? How can FPA, which is a financial planning association, how can they help the community of financial planners out there?

And so there were lots of ideas, conferences were getting canceled and we kept hearing about students losing their internships. And we know what an important kind of developmental piece that is for a student's journey into the profession of financial planning. And so we kept hearing this from students that started trickling in, we started hearing from some professors and then it just kind of built up. And then we were like, oh my gosh, this is a really big issue. And FPA was really uniquely situated to address that issue of how can we help students who lost their internships. And so that's what we did. My husband works with me full time. He has an education background and a film and digital media background as well. And so we said, okay, let's take this on. Let's see if we can really help students who've lost their internships. And so that's how the externship really came about and then Amplified Planning came about after that.

Lauren (03:13):

Okay. So the externship, just for listeners if they're not familiar and you'll please stop me if I'm not good communicating it, but it basically walks a potential advisor or someone who's studying financial planning, whoever signed up through this sort of internship as a digital experience where they're able to sit in on real client meetings and learn from them. Is that right?

Hannah (03:43):

So the externship has evolved from the way we’ve run two of them already. We're gonna do another one again in 2022. And so what we wanted to do is show students what financial planning looks like in practice, right? That was our goal. And so every week we cover a different topic in depth, we'll go investment planning in one week, we'll go education planning in another week, estate planning, there's cash flow, planning, insurance planning, all the things that are really CU curriculum.

And so every week we would bring in three experts and it was really structured. I'll tell you, the first time we ran it, we had over 60 different financial planners that students were able, or learners were able to really get exposure to, but we have our three key experts every week. So on Monday they would share how that one area of financial planning looks like in practice for them. So different firms, different models, different clients, right? How does financial planning, how does this topic evolve? And then they would share deliverables. So all these planners would share, you get to see and compare the three different deliverables every week. And then what we would do is we'd bring them back for live office hours on Wednesday. So students could ask any questions that they have, and I'll tell you these externships are so much fun and students are so engaged asking questions, asking hard questions too, and really kind of diving more into what that looks like on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

With the externship, we really wanted to give the firsthand experience of what this looks like. And so students have access to e-money, Morningstar Advisor, Workstation, and other softwares that we would offer. So it was TD Ameritrade and Schwab, like their full education center. And so we would basically what we did is we created a virtual planning shop that these students could come to and learn the software. So then they would take those deliverables, one or two deliverables. We would give them assignments where they were having to recreate that. So they were doing the work as if they were in an internship, but for a lot of different firms. So that's really what we did in that first externship. We'd also bring in folks from FPA, they're really the experts on career development of what this looks like.

And so we would bring in other experts to really showcase, like here's other elements of planning, here's other ways to develop your career, really trying to show a holistic view of what they have as options for their career. We talked to a number of students. We did focus groups before we created this. And the number one thing students wanted from an internship experience, they wanted to be able to know what their careers were. And we were like, when we do this, we can knock that one outta the park. We can show them what their career options are. And so that's what we would do. We'd bring in people with different types of firms, we'd bring in some of the FinTech firms and say, here's what a career in FinTech looks like. Or this is what financial planning as an employee benefit looks like. Or here's what charitable giving would look like for a career option. And so really trying to show this holistic perspective. 

Lauren (06:42):

That was all part of the curriculum, is that right? 

Hannah (06:44):

Yep. That was all part of the curriculum. So each week we'd set up about 20 hours and we served our students. That's about how much work it was. So this is a really robust program. I think we had like 130 or 160 videos at the end of the program.

Lauren (07:02):

Holy smokes.

Hannah (07:03):

We had many, many hours of video content because we're teaching training on e-money, so students could get e-money certified in the program. So it was a very robust program. It qualified—the first year was 160 hours and the second was 180 experience hours with a CFP® Board. So if you're trying to get your CFP® designation, experience is a huge issue. And so you get that experience almost because we're really showing what planning looks like in practice. So that was the first year; the second year we brought in real client meetings. Because what we learned was that people just wanna see what financial planning is, maybe even before they can commit to all the money that goes into education, the years of your life that have to be there. And so we're really trying to shorten that, to show what financial planning looks like.

So people can make educated decisions of whether or not this is a career path for them. And so we thought we were solving an issue for students who lost their internships. What we realized is we were solving access to financial planning. We had high school students in this program all the way up to college students of every major, all the way to many career changers who were trying to decide if it was a second career for them or not. And so we were able, you know, 20 hours a week is not a small commitment, but we were able to give them this experience and then they could make that decision if they wanna become a financial planner or not.

Lauren (08:32):

That's amazing. So that first piece of it, I think you said there's 160 hours. Was that right? 

Hannah (8:34)

Yeah. 

Lauren (8:35):

160 hours is about 20 hours a week, give or take. It sounds like there's pre-recording of actual, real time. They're getting certified along the way. And then that layered on, I think you said it was 180 hours. 

Hannah (08:52):

Yeah, that was the second year. 

Lauren (08:54):

Okay. So that is the year that you brought in the real-time pre-recorded interviews with clients and such.

Hannah (09:03):

Yeah.

Lauren (09:04):

Wow. So today is it the original curriculum plus the recordings with clients?

Hannah (09:12):

Yep. So obviously we refresh the curriculum every year. We're bringing in new experts, fresh perspectives. We want, if a student takes it again, we want them to get new ideas, new exposure to new people. We wanna really keep that fresh on kind of that cutting edge of what financial planning is. So it is kind of a similar structure with the clients as well. And so we are bringing back our clients, John and Diana. So it's a couple who are trying to decide if they could retire or what that would look like. And so we walked them through that financial planning process, and it's pretty neat to get to do that with them. And we were so grateful. It was really fun at the end of the externship.

I had been talking to John and Diana cuz they're real clients of mine and they just got such a kick out of it that all these externs were following along with their story. And they agreed to come back and do a live Q&A. So we actually have a recorded live Q&A with my clients coming back and answering all of the externs questions about what they were thinking in the middle of this process. It was pretty incredible. They were so gracious to be able to do that. And really answering the question of what was the value of planning for them. Were the meetings too long, you know, all of those things. When did you know that you wanted to actually work with Hannah? They answered all of those questions that we think, and we kind of wonder what is going on in the client's mind. So it was pretty incredible. 

Lauren (10:43):

That's so fun. I also admire that you didn't let compliance stop you from being able to bring clients to the table. Cuz I mean that is such a big, big deal. I mean, even photographing you, right? Like you need to get consent for things of that sort. So that didn't stop you and is providing so much value and then it's bringing value to the client as well. You know, that's a win-win. It seems so.

Hannah (11:11):

It is. And I'll tell you my compliance guy, he's been wonderful. And through all of this, I'm pretty sure he was like, you wanna do what? Do you know what your privacy rules are? And so he's been really great in working with me and we change all the client data, so we're editing all their client documents, everything like that. There have been some clients we have where we've blurred out where they're working, different pieces like that, but what's so great about it is we were really worried. I mean, when we had the idea, we thought, okay, well we could maybe pay somebody to come in and pretend that they're a client, but then we're just like, there's so many facts that go into it. And we had in the first externship, somebody did a recording, a mock client meeting.

And I just remember watching it and being like, hmmmm, they're hitting the elements but that's not real. That's not really what happens. And so we really debated if we should just pull in models and create new scenarios. And then we were like, no, we need to see real clients. We need to say their real reaction. So you get to see John and Diane's reaction when I tell them that basically something major has to happen in order for them to retire and that they don't have their savings up to speed. You get to see them process really difficult decisions of, should they do a home remodel? Should they not do a home remodel given their situation? You get to see medical issues that impact their situation. It is stuff that you couldn't script because it's so real and you get to see their real response to it. And that's not something that you can fake.

Lauren (12:45):

You're right. And it's only in a client meeting that you get to see that. So that they're willing to share, that is a gift. I mean, it's pretty incredible. I know we were chatting before that it almost feels like you've hit this chord of this new way of educating, with what people need and this digital age and providing this element of realness. And not sort of the ivory tower. 

Hannah (13:16):

No, I completely agree. We have a pretty strict rule that we have in the externship of no PowerPoints are allowed.

Lauren (13:22):

No way. Really?

Hannah (13:24):

No PowerPoints. 

Lauren (13:26):

Oh my gosh. Well, how do you get around it?

Hannah (13:27):

It's so boring. We basically say you need to be able to show us the document. You need to be able to show us what this looks like, but without using any PowerPoints. It is all very much experiential learning that we're focusing on. And what's so great is everybody, I heard so many people saying we're Zoomed out. It's like, no, we're not. I mean, yes, we are Zoomed out. But nobody wants to sit on a webinar. You look at how people consume content. Now it's a podcast; they want something to be engaging. They want to learn. But they really wanna be challenged. And that's what we were able to do with the externship. We were able to take all of those best practices and put it in. And we have people telling us how great it is. We have recorded testimonials and obviously written testimonials.

And I can't tell you how many people have told us. They're just like, it's like a Netflix show that you just wanna binge on. In this externship, you just have to keep going. And so that's really what we wanted to create with this. And then when you love financial planning, I mean, I love financial planning and so many of these externships do too. It's like you just want more; you're like, just gimme more. And that's how I was when I started my career. That's exactly what we found in this group. So it's pretty, pretty special. Pretty, pretty cool. 

Lauren (14:42):

Well you've had, let's see, you're able to register 900 people and I believe that number's right. You've built an amazing base, right? Just with your connection, this podcast, actually being in the industry itself, but how did you get so many registered in such a short period of time? What did you do? What was your promotion plan like and your outreach? 

Hannah (15:12):

Absolutely. So the first year when we opened it, it was like we opened the door, we had three weeks for registration. And so what was so neat about it is that we filled such a need of students who were losing their internships on so many levels. So we opened it up and I remember within like three days, we had a hundred people registered. It was a free program. It was literally us saying, we wanna give back to students like that. This is really what it is. You need help; we're here to help you. And so because it was a free program, in the technology piece there were some issues with syncing it up. We had over 1,900 people sign up for it in those three weeks and that initial offering. So it was like a wildfire.

When we look at how we did this offer, it was so many people had a need and we were able to directly fill that need. We had universities from all over the country that were promoting it to their business schools that were offering internship credit for it. They were able to fill that need. For a lot of students, they had to do that for graduation. Reddit was a big referral source for us, which is just crazy. I don't know how that happened. But we asked how people found us. FPA also has 80 chapters around the country. So we were able to share that with their chapter list. And so there was a lot of word of mouth. It was so cool.

It was really the financial planning community coming together and providing help for their students. So I was getting calls from career centers that are wanting to know more about this externship program, because an FPA member out in Boston, who I've never met before, I had never heard their name before, called them to tell them about the externship so they could share it with their students because he thought that it would be able to help them. Wow. So we were just making connections all over the country, because we really were a solution when there wasn't a solution. And so that’s really kind of how the program kind of blossomed, and really how we got started. And nobody knew what they were getting into. My gosh, we didn't know what we were getting into, much less the students. 

I’ll never forget, we realized at one point, I think it was a week into the registration, where we realized that we had high school students signing up for this. Wow. It's just crazy. And so we thought we were designing an education curriculum for juniors and seniors who lost their internships. And when we saw that, we were like, oh my gosh. And so we ended up changing it from a learning perspective. So somebody who has no experience of financial planning is gonna be able to complete the program. If you're a junior or senior in college, we're gonna be able to meet you at that level. Or if you have experience, we're gonna be able to meet you at that level too. We really wanted to make it accessible to everyone. So that's how we first got the word out. It was the media that we were able to connect with really, really big names in that experiential learning space.

FPA chapters and university professors were kind of, I don't wanna say desperate, but there was really just no solution and we were able to step in and then we provided an excellent experience for their students. We went all in, like we put our chips on the table on this one. I told you beforehand, my husband and I were both working anywhere from eight to 14 hours a week, seven days, six or seven days a week on this for three months to make this happen. But students loved it. I still get messages all the time from students. So it got word of mouth.

And so when we ran it the second year, we charged for it, so it was $199. Plus you need to be a member of FPA, which is $50 if you're a student and we had 940 people sign up for it. And so we really pushed hard; we have our email list and I'm emailing people every week to let them know we're sharing kind of my perspectives on a career in financial planning, what this looks like, what I'm learning, all of those pieces. We had the podcasts that we were running, You're a Financial Planner Now, and we had the network of financial planners, but then we really had word of mouth. And that's really what I think has helped this program tremendously. Because it's now known as a program. If people were just to put out a guide, a career path guide, they actually listed out the externship as something that people should consider doing. So we've really been able to integrate it into a lot of places where aspiring financial planners are gonna look to further their career.

Lauren (19:57):

That's fantastic. It does sound like word of mouth was really key, whether that was intentional or not. But as you mentioned earlier, you hit at this like a dynamo, and had the knowledge and the skill sets and the capacity to be able to take that on. And then how did you go about planning this curriculum? Because you had to unroll this product right. But with this new service offering, if it's just sort of it doesn't really pick up, how did you know what to put together so that it was an experience and it is an experience.

Hannah (20:41):

I went back to, well, this is what I needed when I first started. This is really what I needed. When we were doing the whole program, it was really fun. I was telling some of the externships that this feels like I'm creating an escape room of my favorite things that I'm just gonna share with the whole group of people. So I think people caught the passion. I love financial learning. I love the impact that I can have on people. And so that's really what we were doing in this program, really sharing that with people. And so bringing in experts. You'll see we do that with other course offerings in the Amplified Planning Core as well. And so we're pretty tight on that content and we are tight on the content on this, on the externship, but we have a lot of fun on it.

There's a huge community. I mean, the forums on this thing are just wild. People sharing resources, asking questions; it's so much fun. I have to give a lot of credit to my husband, from an education standpoint. I'm just a financial planner throwing things together, and he's like, I'm throwing things up on the wall and he's like, okay, well, like we can get to all this, but we have to reorder this entirely. And there'll be times, there were even times where I was like, okay, so here's what we wanna do. And my husband would be like, okay, and that's boring. He's like, I wouldn't wanna sit through that. How can we reimagine this to be more engaging? And so, it's a little bit frustrating in the moment, to be honest, but it's so good and so important to think again, how do people want to be learning? I think on our Amplify Planning website, I forget how we worded it, but Charlie is the one in charge of making sure that any of our content isn't boring. 

Lauren (22:20):

I love it. No boring content.

Hannah (22:21):

No boring content. We want stuff that's really gonna be engaging. And now, like my parents might find it boring, but if you're interested in financial planning, you're gonna love it.

Lauren (22:31):

So the digitally minded person in me is wondering, okay, so you've got this role of no boring content, but then how did you actually build it? We talked a little bit about the studio and I’d love to hear a little bit about that, but were you using educational software to help plug this? How did that come together? 

Hannah (22:54):

Absolutely. So we used Kajabi for the first year. And again, there is no good learning management system that fits every solution. There just isn’t. If there was, it would be the hands down winner, but there's not one out there. So we used Kajabi. This last year, we used a learning management system FPA has on their end. So we would record the videos like this, and we would bring in experts on Zoom. Actually, we didn't record 'em like this; this was a second year, anyway, we'd record Zoom meetings like this. Then we would just put this into learning management. So there was a whole pathway every week where we had videos for people to watch Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and there were many quizzes involved in it.

I think there were something like 90-something assessments or quizzes throughout the program. So we really built this out so we would have these videos. And so I would record the video. I would work on coordinating it with the experts. All of this, especially that first year, it was wild. Then Charlie would record it all and then he would then edit it to make it a really seamless kind of whole experience. I mean, you understand this, but you know, there is something about the polish that matters. Certainly in certain places where you can be really casual, I mean, I love my Insta stories. You don't have to be polished there. But when it comes to a learning system where you have short attention spans of people, they wanna like the same thing.

So it would have the same intro music. It would have the same lower thirds. It would have the same production quality every single time. At the end of the externship, we had these live events. It was so funny. Some of the students were talking and they were like, oh my gosh, is anybody else hearing that music in their sleep? And that was part of that polish we really wanted to bring to it. So it was easy to click on the next video. We didn't want there to be anything that would limit people from just moving on to the next piece.

Lauren (24:58):

Okay. That's fantastic. It's absolutely amazing just to see and hear a little bit more about how you all put that together too. I just can't even imagine having to do videos every single day.

Hannah (25:09):

Oh, it was wild. Yeah. It was wild. 

Lauren (25:11):

It is wild. I mean, just the prep work that goes into that. There's so much work that goes into each one of those. How the heck do you find the time—having your own firm, being a mom? Getting this going, just the day to day of life, where did you fit it all in? 

Hannah (25:38):

Yeah. Well, I told you a little bit of my career path, where when I was 22, I started working for a woman who was 68. Four years later, I bought her practice, then bought another small practice after, and it was just wild from the management standpoint. And it was pretty much anything that had been sold in financial services from the 80s to then I had in my practice. I learned a ton but I did what all the consultants said. I basically took my core financial planning clients instead of my own practice. So it freed up a lot of time. We had just hired somebody. So I don't do this all by myself. I think that should be a given, if anybody's listening to this, I don't do this by myself.

So when the relationship rolled around, we had somebody working full time. He had just started right before the pandemic hit. And so he was able to really shoulder a lot of what was happening with the practice at that time so we could really focus on this side of it. So even now, he's moved on, and we have a part-time planner, she's out of Ohio. So everything is virtual. She's a mom getting back in the workforce. It's really, really neat. So she helps me with my practice tremendously right now. When that full-time employee left, we filled it with two part-time employees. We have my peer, ER, who's so wonderful. And then we also hired an executive assistant for me. So she runs my email. She runs my calendar because all the scheduling just was so much; she does all of that now for me. It was really a hire to just clear my head of all of the day to day stuff.

So those are the people who helped me and my practice. My husband works with me full time so it's a complete competitive advantage there, from a work standpoint, to be able to have that level of production, like eye on everything and the education eye; it would cost me so much money to have that. So just from a work standpoint, but then also from a life standpoint, I mean, we're technically still in quarantine from COVID right now. And we're able to juggle that so much easier because we both work together. And so we both know what our workloads are and we know how we can reprioritize our work to make sure our family is taken care of.

We have in-home childcare, so that is tremendously helpful. And then for all of our marketing, we have a whole online team. So I ended up hiring a project manager, or an integrator, if you will, if you know those terminologies. So she manages the whole team, cuz I'm not a good manager of people. We have a copywriter that we work with. We have a virtual assistant who's putting everything on the site, making sure all the emails go out on time, making sure she's posting to my Twitter or Facebook or whatever the social things are. We have a graphic designer we have a retainer as well. So we have that whole team working as well. So people see me and they're like, oh my gosh, how are you able to do it all? Well, I don't, I have a whole team helping me do things.

And we've started simplifying our life too. We're now doing a monthly program for planners called Amplified Planning Core. Instead of producing, we send out like a weekly email and we have social posts and everything. But as far as really creating content, we provide one really amazing piece of content or course every month. And so it's been able to help me. So when I look at my calendar, I'm really spending two to three days on that and I'm really able to focus on that. And so I can kind of limit that on my calendar, which helps free up a lot more of my calendar and headspace too.

Lauren (29:22):

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Just transparency about how you keep it all running, you know, because I think there's so many of us where when something's done really well, it's like, wow, it's like a performance or something, but people don't always realize the behind the scenes and the hard work that went into that to be able to make it shine on the outside. 

Hannah (29:45):

It’s always been these positions of growth, right? So when it was just Charlie and I, I had a video, like a podcast editor, right? So we were able to do that. And then we added on a copywriter because we were getting in so many fights about the copy. I'm like, I don't know how to do this. I'm not good at it. And he wasn't good at it. And so it's really easy to see something like this and be like, oh my gosh, I have to have this whole team. I have to be able to hire all these people. It's like, no, you start where you are. You're just like, what's your pain point? And then you just solve that. And then you just keep moving.

A couple years ago, I was talking with a friend. I mean, this was like four or five years ago before all the externships. And I was just talking about how fortunate I was and when my husband's working with me, full time, we're able to do some of these things. And it was just, it just feels so incredibly grateful and this friend, she was able to provide such good perspective. She's like, Hannah, you've been doing this for six years now and now you're here. And it just reminded me that these things aren't overnight successes. Nothing's an overnight success. This started before we were married, talking about what do we want our life to be like? And you just keep making a decision of what does that look like? And right now we're reevaluating. We stopped hosting the podcast with FPA and You’re a Financial Planner Now.

There was a Facebook group I was managing and still doing some odds and ends there. And so that ended at the end of 2021. And so now we're like, okay, how do we want to be structuring our life? We get to reinvent ourselves all the time. And I think it gives me so much freedom. Because my girls, I have two little girls, what they need is gonna be different. And I've just gained so much freedom and things can evolve and change and it's really good and healthy and it's something to be excited about and the change and yes, it's sad. I've definitely had those moments cuz you're giving up a part of your identity and some of these changes, but man, to be able to do this and to have a career and a profession, when you can do this, it's pretty amazing.

Lauren (31:50):

Yeah, it is. So it's super amazing. And it's empowering to hear you talk about it too, so I appreciate you sharing. And then if there's any advice you have to someone who is thinking about getting into this industry or wants to take courses, what would you say to them?

Hannah (32:08):

Well, my always hands down advice is stay curious. There's so much to learn. But if you're really looking at getting in, what I would do, I know I'm pitching my own product here, but it's Amplified Planning Core. It's $30 a month. We made it so cheap. If $30 a month is an issue, email me. Our goal is to increase access to financial planning; just sign up for that program, see a client meeting, get experience of what does the work look like to do these client meetings, join us on the call. You get to hear people, ask me questions about the meeting. Like, why did you do this, Hannah? It's pretty amazing. But you can really ask any questions you have for $30 a month and just get your toe in and see what it's like.

Or if you're like so many people that I knew. I mean, my gosh, I knew some of the most brilliant people who started financial planning when I did, so brilliant. They would be the most amazing financial planners right now, but they learned all this stuff. They had the education, they saw what was happening and there was just a fundamental disconnect. And if that's you, come join this program and you can just see what another way of doing financial planning is. We get so isolated in this field because there are not these clear career paths yet. If it's not working, please break out of that isolation. I'm telling you about our prior employee planning, join FPA, get into some of these communities, see how other people are doing it because I would bet that if you're passionate about financial planning, about financial literacy, about financial education, there is a place for you. It just might not be where you started and that's okay. So just know to keep going because your career really matters and the impact that you can have really, really matters and we wanna help support that.

Lauren (33:53):

Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today and just for sharing more about this initiative you have going and more about your background and really the behind the scenes and how you've been able to make it happen. So appreciate all you're doing for the community as well. So thank you for taking the time and sharing a little bit more.

Hannah (34:11):

Yeah. So thank you so much for having me and just thank you for all the listeners who've made it this far. This is just it. Gosh, I'm just so fortunate for what I do. So thank you. 

Lauren (34:19):

Well like I said, we appreciate you sharing with the community and all you're doing to give back. So, for those who are listening, we'll include the show notes. We'll also include any links to resources. And of course, I’d love to include a link to sign up or learn more information about Amplified Planning. 

Hannah (34:39):

Awesome. Thank you.

Lauren (34:40):

All right. Thank you.

Named one of Top 100 People in Finance 2020 by The Top 100 Magazine, Dr. George M. Blount has spent over 20 years in financial services, with experience from sales and project management to research and strategy. In 2018, he shifted careers and founded nBalance Financial, where he works as a financial therapist.

Why people make the decisions they make with money has always fascinated Dr. Blount throughout his years as a financial services professional. As he matured in the wealth management space, he decided to shift his focus to exploring this curiosity more. That’s why he founded nBalance Financial to focus on the intersectionality of mental and financial health.

Here’s what we talked about with Dr. Blount:

• How a curiosity spurred him to change his career focus 
• The benefits of financial therapy 
• His approach to making the “system” of financial services more open to all

Featured Resources 

• nBalance Financial
• nBalance Financial LinkedIn
• nBalance Financial Twitter 
• nBalance Financial Facebook
• nBalance Financial YouTube Channel
• nBalance Financial Instagram
• What is Retirement?: The concept, plan administration, and readiness of Retirement
• “How to Stay Calm Under Financial Instability” 

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Dr. Blount’s LinkedIn page. 

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):

Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm excited to hear more about your firm and what you've built. So let's go ahead and jump in. I was reading a little bit about your background and I think it's a very purposeful title that you have with financial therapist. Let's just start there. How did you decide on that title? Where does that stem from? What is the thinking behind all of that?

George (00:26):

So as a financial therapist, I help people with their emotional relationship with money. That emotional relationship with money is one of the things that I have always been curious about throughout the time I've spent in wealth management, which started in ‘97 and continues up into this day. For most of my career though, I worked in your traditional wealth management functions, doing financial planning, financial advisory, and then also doing trading in terms of online trading stocks, bonds, mutual funds and options, et cetera. As I started to mature, I guess, in the space, I would say right around 2008, it really became apparent after the financial crisis that there was a gap between what we needed to do for people in terms of the information that they have available to them and the decisions that they're making.

George (01:19):

And how do we get that information to the individuals was a big challenge that I just could not figure out. And so right around 2010 or so, I started to look at doctoral programs just to look in the qualitative space to see what we are doing in financial education. I started my program in 2014. I had an interest in psychology. So I immediately started to look at the behavioral sciences space, really just dealing with that as a discipline from 2000, you know, really maturing in 2010. And really, I think explaining a lot of the aspects of human behavior that we saw in 2008. And from there, that's where I found financial therapy. It was a practice by mental health professionals that really dealt with couples that were having troubles with their financial problems. And instead of that mental health counselor trying to fix the problems, the financial problems, they would just outsource to a CFP®, some type of financial planner or financial professional.

George (02:25):

And then once that was satisfied, go about 10 years later, it's actually become more of a hybrid model. We have practitioners as well as those that are academics. And so that's the space that I found is really being an interesting intersectionality between financial health and mental health. And as a result in 2017, I started this firm, nBalance Financial, to specifically focus on financial therapy as a way to help people with their financial decisions, to improve financial decision-making over long-term horizons. And so thinking of wealth as opposed to being the accumulation of assets, simply being the accumulation of prudent financial decisions. And so I've spent the past couple of years developing that model, developing the scale, and then it has really allowed that intersectionality to come out a little bit more. So it's definitely become a better environment, although kind of globally it's a bad environment for the awareness, for the discipline, for the theory in and of itself, it creates a great atmosphere to be able to grow, scale and help people out.

Lauren (03:39):

Is there anything unique in your processes that you do to help folks go through that process? You typically would go to an advisor, you'd pass over paperwork, have an initial discussion, yada yada, but I mean, you see under the hood, right? There's a lot of things that are going on. And how do you approach that given your background?

George (04:01):

Yeah, so financial health is really five components, in that working with an advisor is only one part, the economic part, just can we find the products and services to help me satisfy some of my financial problems? The other four are really just more visceral and more innate in terms of how economies are created. So some people just develop their financial capabilities by their environment, where they're at, relational. It may be from their parents. Some actually just start to develop more of an emotional relationship. So they make financial decisions based on their emotions, how they feel or how they choose not to feel. Some people start to make these decisions based on their own individual psychology, kind of a way of creating meaning in money or meaning of not having money. And then last but not least, we really just have what is an overall ability to look at our environment from the standpoint of, we understand that people have financial limitations, but we don't necessarily make it easier.

George (05:00):

We actually make it more difficult for people to make those decisions. And so the approach really just addresses the other aspects besides the products and services, but can we deal with the external environment, the psychology, the emotional relationship or the behavior, to understand the financial decisions. I think another part of that is really looking at it in three phases. Let's look at your money past, how do we get to the place where we're at? And so let's evaluate where that's at, and that takes a lot of conversation and a lot of listening. That really is origin stories of your financial persona. And that's more of in line with financial therapy, really allowing someone to speak and understand it in their own terms, how they relate to money.

George (05:54):

The second phase is in their money present, which is based on where you are today, where you've come from in the past, how do you feel about where you stand right now and how can we best navigate your situation today? And then the last phase would be your money future, what do we need to do to pretty much create the best outcome for you and what things in terms of resources, information, products, or services do we need to provide to you? So that way you're set up the best way. So I think we have a few different aspects in the traditional financial advisory world and helping out people with their decisions. Then the very last portion of it is products and services.

Lauren (06:34):

I see. So do you do that, do you have those conversations in the discovery? Is that part of the onboarding?

George (06:40):

Yep. And so it happens in discovery. We have two different versions. I have a profile on Psychology Today, so I'm able to get individuals that are keenly interested in taking care of their own financial problems. I also work with the organizations through their employee benefits. And so as people are working with their 401(k)s or trying to understand retirement, we really use that as an opportunity to start to do better at understanding finances and understanding what that retirement could actually look like. So it's a discovery process that originates in a retail form through kind of Psychology Today through direct outreach or an institutional form through benefits.

Lauren (07:19):

Okay. And then if someone were to come and work with you, is there homework they do ahead of time? Or is it more, you just want that organic answer? And that conversation happens through that discovery.

George (07:32):

Yeah, it's more organic and we actually just take our time and build that process overall. It doesn't take long, but I think the most important part is not to do a lot of prerequisites. In this form, it's really important for you to use your own words, not bias the information at all. And so really seeing the facial expressions, having the conversation, being able to build from storytelling what is really important about the financial decisions and what is not, it really is about just listening. A lot of the information that I could provide or give people ahead of time, I'm not quite sure what influence that will have. And I'm more interested in once you have given someone information, what do they do with it? Cuz that's part of the behavior change process. So instead of a lot of prerequisite homework and kind of allowing that to build toward an understanding, start organically, building that understanding and then hold people accountable to the change that should be precipitated when you have new information. Because if you get new information and you're doing the same thing, then we should understand why that's happening as well.

Lauren (08:42):

And then how are you holding folks accountable, if that's the right word, or just keeping that conversation going as they engage with you over potentially a lifetime, right?

George (08:54):

Yeah, I think some of it just really comes to asking a question of why kind of, why are we not changing? Why are we not doing something different now that you said that you didn't have information and now that you have information, why are we doing the same thing? I think the accountability happens when you understand the origin story and you understand where they're at today. And so putting those two things together allows you to use some of the motivational interviewing to say, you said you didn't want to be in this situation, right? You said that with new information you can improve. And so now that you have new information that's allowing you to change your situation, tell me why you're not right. Let's start to work through what's preventing you from changing. And that's really where the accountability comes from. It's not about saying do this, but really responding to, you said this is what you wanted. You said this is what you needed. And you said that if you had this, it would help. And so with those three things, why are we not acting?

George (09:57):

And that may be what we're really trying to solve. It may not be a financial problem, so to speak. It may be anxiety, it may simply be in decision-making situations there's a big freeze moment and you have to overcome it. And I think that's where there's a big differentiator between traditional financial advisory. The moving forward. This approach really says that what we may need to provide you is something that we're not sure of, only you know, and only you know how to get there, but we really have to just expose you to what's keeping you from moving ahead. And I think in the traditional financial advisory space, it's that regardless of where you came from or where you are at today, this product can get you to where you want to be in the future. That's where we are kind of diametrically different. To go forward, we believe in going backwards first, as opposed to taking our first conversation and moving forward. 

Lauren (11:00)

And then, you had a very purposeful intention in the way that you started the firm. Even the titles, right, that are being held, the process that you're taking clients through and getting to that point took some time, right, with education and everything. And where do you see the industry going at large? Do you feel that this is a part of a bigger trend in our country? What are your thoughts as we look ahead and what should we have on our radar?

George (11:28):

I think the two things I would say that are really interesting trends is that, as a financial professional, my latter years in corporate were spent trying to develop a think tank, an institute within wealth management. So that way we're able to understand these things at an academic level and really use the academic space, where we have this idea orientation as a way to provide us with product development ideas, where these ideas are there already. We just have to get them into the corporate space. And so one way to do that is through financial therapy. It's a good intersection between mental health and financial health. It's a good combination between the products that are needed and kind of understanding the apprehensions that people have in terms of using those products. And so it creates the right type of connection.

George (12:20):

The trend is really that we start to incorporate more academic rigor into our product development. So that way we're not coming up with new problems and new solutions, but we're actually allowing ourselves to build upon the solutions to the problems that are already being worked on every single year. And I think that is the real difference that we're seeing here. We see the qualitative advantages of using this information to help out people, because it deals with behavior as opposed to more of the quantitative ways of interacting with information, which is just really probability, right? Here's big data and this big data gives me a way to understand big swaths of people without actually talking to them. And so I think that the approach is just very different, where we use behavioral sciences, where actually talking to a very small group of people may give you information into how a larger group of people are behaving and kind of understanding that dynamic, how it's worked, how, over 20 years, we've seen two Nobel prizes in economics being drawn from behavioral sciences.

George (13:33):

That's where business has to arrive—seeing academic research and idea orientation as a place to feed from. That prevents you from sitting in a boardroom, coming up with problems that don't exist or creating bad solutions to problems that have been around for a while, that you don't really don't have a chance to continue upon what people are doing if you don't look there and you don't start. So I see the research being more qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, and really looking at areas that have intersectionality with some academic partnership is where I see the industry heading.

Lauren (14:15):

Do you see any of that happening currently? I know you have that experience in corporate; it sounds like it potentially was trending that way before you had parted. And do you see any kind of hubs of knowledge, if you will, or even potentially, opportunities for folks to start to gather this knowledge, if you don't feel that they exist, articles, publications, everyplace.

George (14:38):

Yeah. Everyplace except for corporate America, I would say, right? And so there is a giant strategy, it's called the financial literacy education strategy. It's developed by a federal commission, a financial literacy education commission, composed of the heads of 19 agencies. And it develops a national financial education strategy every other year. So we have that and it allows us to have consistency in our terms and understanding of what research is really prevalent, what's moving things forward and how we can achieve our outcome of limiting financial illiteracy over time. Academics use that information. And I should mention, I teach as well. I teach managerial accounting and behavioral finance. So I understand the way that this information is being taught. So it's imperative that we actually look at it from those perspectives. I think one of the things that really makes it difficult is that nonprofits are using this information because they're aligning to the strategy because they will work to have deep information.

George (15:50):

They work with educational institutions who are using this information. Who works within government agencies, like state treasurers offices, who are responsible for financial education. And so we see this interconnectivity between a global or at least national financial literacy strategy that allows us to move people toward a common direction. We see people following it in terms of nonprofits, educational institutions, as well as our governments and what dilutes that entire messaging is when corporate America does something that's completely against the grain of what is said there. When all of those entities are moving in the right direction and to create a common language. And then we all of a sudden develop a new term because it was catchy and marketable, that is where we have an issue, right? I'll give you an example.

George (16:45):

If we're trying to fix financial literacy and we call people, and we say that there's a financial literacy problem, it doesn't mean that we're calling them illiterate, but we can't really say that we're trying to enhance financial illiteracy up until we are 18. And then, because we don't wanna call adults illiterate, we say financial capability or financial wellness from 21 to 65. And then it turns into something else after age 65, it turns into consumer protections. That's not the way, right. To allow us to create continuity and actually bridge the gap to what we're seeing, we need a whole approach that allows us to see our financial limitations that happen in K through 12 are impacting our adulthood. It is impacting our lives as aging adults. And that's where without corporate America aligning to what we already see with these other hubs makes it incredibly difficult for us to move the needle, because we really just take great strides forward to really deal with noise that makes the messaging a little bit nebulous and really hard for people to grasp onto. 

Lauren (18:01):

So in other words, objectively to be able to look at the whole person and not just the financial picture, and how you are, I don't wanna use the word treating, but you're interacting with them. You're helping them to solve their ultimately potentially financial challenge, but connected to other things. You can't disconnect the pieces is a little bit of what I'm hearing. 

George (18:25):

So yeah, it's like a system. Financial services is a system. How do we create a good flow of information into that system for people that may not have the means or the resources or the access to it? If the system exists, but it only exists for the people that know where to go, know who to talk to, have the right money, or have the right credit score or live in the right cities. Then that's not a very open and fluid system, right? It's very constrictive. And that means that a lot of people are gonna be ostracized. But if you develop a system that understands that we all come to this place from different times, from different areas, that we all have similar objectives, right? And our beginnings are just very different in that we are all lacking the information that we need to move forward.

George (19:15):

That type of system allows more people into it. It allows more people to learn, grow, expand, and create equity. And so I think it's really, to your point, we have to develop a good conduit to that system that allows for increased stability, increased equity, because without it, we have a lot of people ostracized from it. And what happens is that they don't all of a sudden turn away from these financial products, they just get the same financial products at a higher cost with a lack of customer service, with a lack of consumer protections and a lack of oversight. That's the only thing that happens when that system is closed and we don't allow it to be more open and fruitful.

Lauren (19:57):

So well said. I really appreciate that. And then is there anything else that you'd like to share if someone would be interested in working with you, or just interested to learn more about some of what you've shared and would love to hear a little bit more on that?

George (20:15):

Yeah, one of the things that I like to say is as a financial therapist, it really allows me to do two things, work with individuals and work with the organization. So I think if I looked at it from the individual standpoint, it is financial therapy, helping people understand where their stories come from, what their financial language is, and how to use that language to their best purpose to get what they need in terms of achieving their goals. When we move to institutional, I think the imbalance in what the organization is able to provide shifts more to behavioral sciences, and really looking at how do we understand changing behavior, human emotions, human decision-making, and apply it to our key performance metrics for our organization, or to achieve our outcome. I focus on retirement a lot. And so it's really important if we provide a retirement plan and we know that people don't have the information that they need to appropriately invest and educate, you’re not doing anything constructive for them, right?

George (21:18):

We have this product that can be a portfolio goal that helps people save as well as learn. It can help you buy your first house. It can help you pay for your first wedding and it can help you pay for your retirement. But if you only sell this and position it as a retirement product to a 25-year-old, you're gonna miss the utility. And so organizations that are looking to develop financial wellness programs, create better utility, understand how behavioral sciences are able to influence employee behavior, participant behavior. Like that's where I can help out organizations or that's where imbalance can help organizations as well as what I mentioned on the individual side. Second part is that it's more about the financial therapy discipline than it is about me and my organization.

George (22:13):

If we let more people know that financial therapy exists, that financial psychology and all of its different tentacles exist, and it becomes as commonplace as having your financial advisor or your CPA or your CFP®, your financial planner, that helps people, right? It fills a gap in terms of understanding. And so a lot of the work that I do is around advocacy for the discipline. So that way, even if you don't use me and use our services, you find a financial therapist. We're all over the place, we're all over the world. And there's a lot of people that are doing this work, but we all struggle with this one thing. We want to help so many people. And so many people don't know about us. And so I happen to enjoy speaking out about it. I enjoy doing this type of work.

George (23:06):

And so I would implore everyone to look at financial psychology and financial therapy as ways to help out people overall, people that are looking for that type of help. I would look to this discipline and say, this is a place that we can help. But if you're a compassionate employer that's looking to improve human capital and trying to understand the ways to actually limit financial stress and balance, our approach to employee wellness, as well as financial therapy and what it has the ability to do nationwide is a great place to start. And I would encourage everybody to do so.

Lauren (23:46):

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today and sharing your story and a bit back about your background and expertise. So we'll make sure to include some links and more details below, but thank you again and have a great rest of your day.

George (24:02):

No, it is my pleasure. Thank you so much, Lauren.

If you enjoyed this spotlight, learn more about what NAPFA has to offer members on its website. 

Named CEO in 2013, Geoffrey Brown joined the National Association of Personal Finance Advisors (NAPFA) after years of experience in association management, strategic planning, and organizational development.

NAPFA is seeing an even younger generation entering the association, “Generation 3.0” as CEO Geoffrey Brown calls it. He and his team are adapting to this by focusing on the organization’s clarity of purpose: to provide education content, community, and avenues of advocacy for financial advisors.

Featured Resources

• NAPFA
• NAPFA 2022 Spring Conference
• NAPFA Facebook
• NAPFA Twitter
• NAPFA LinkedIn
• NAPFA YouTube
• NAPFA’s Diversity + Inclusion Toolkit 

To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Geoffry Brown’s LinkedIn page.

Full Audio Transcript

Lauren (00:00):

All right. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for joining us today. I'm excited to hear a little bit more about you and NAPFA, what brought you here and just really the future of the industry at large. So why don't we go ahead and start there. How did you get to the position that you're in today? I'd love to hear a little bit more of your background. 

Geoffrey (00:20):

Sure. Sure. But first of all, thank you for having me, Lauren. I really appreciate it. You all have been a good partner for NAPFA and NAPFA firms. So it's really good to spend some time with you. I've been with the association for eight years. Looking back on it, I'm a career association guy. I graduated from college on a Tuesday and I started my first association job a week later on Wednesday. So this is really all I've ever done for my adult professional life. And back in 2013, NAPFA’s CEO at the time had announced her retirement and as boards do, they initiated a search and hired a search firm that does a lot of work in the financial planning association space.

Geoffrey (01:04):

Initially I was like, no, I'm not interested. I was working at a consultancy here in Chicago that focused on associations and nonprofit organizations, and it was a good gig. It was a great play. So I was on an equity track. Luckily that search firm was very persistent. They said maybe I should just learn a little bit more about the organization and then it was, maybe I should meet some of the members. And from that point on, it was just really infectious. I know that every American needs a financial advisor in their life to some degree, and some people make bad decisions. Some people make good decisions. Some people make decisions based on what they know, and that's often not enough. And when I started hearing the members I met with in the search process talk about what they do, why they do it, what really motivates them professionally, I was hooked. Part of it was because I was one of those consumers that made a bad decision in terms of the advisor I engaged with and got wrapped up in some products that were totally unsuitable for me at my age and profession, where I was in life. And from then on, it was just, this is the right place for me and it's been a great eight years.

Lauren (02:23):

And then when you came to NAPFA, looking back eight years ago and looking at where you are now, what's kind of been perhaps your philosophy or the tone or value set you've been able to cultivate, to really kind of move the needle from looking back eight years ago to where you are now, as you move forward. 

Geoffrey (02:44):

You know, when I came to NAPFA, it was in a really solid place. There were some things volunteers and members in the community were demanding that the board addressed for sure, but that's every professional membership organization. So it wasn't a situation where, wow, we need to blow this up and start from scratch. It was an organization that at the time just celebrated its 30th anniversary. So the opportunity to really look to the future and identify what we wanted to do to create some lasting change was right there on the horizon. And luckily, we had great volunteers that were willing to share their info. They really had an understanding of where they wanted to take the association, and an understanding of what they believed its potential to be.

Geoffrey (03:40):

And so walking into that situation, it was really easy to start by listening. Hey, what are the things that we need to do better? What are the things that we need to do more of and what are the things that we should stop doing? And people were willing and interested in sharing their thoughts and their opinions. And that really allowed me to get a roadmap to discuss with the volunteers that were at the helm at the time to really think about where we are going, to sharpen the saw a little bit around the edges, just really to make this experience a little bit better for the members and the consumers they serve. It's interesting when you think about it. Eight years ago, NAPFA was an association of about 23, 2,400 practitioners and students and right now we're pushing 4,400, which is really, really exciting to think about that trajectory and just where the association could go into the future. We're two years shy of our 40th anniversary. So we've got this little thing out there, what do we wanna be when we grow up? Because that 40-year mark is really grown up, not only the association, but also the profession that just celebrated its 50th anniversary a few years ago.

Lauren (04:51):

Absolutely. And so it sounds like membership, I would assume, is a goal, or perhaps it just came from the value set of NAPFA seeing that growth. What other changes have you seen in the past eight years, and then what are some of the changes looking ahead that you see for NAPFA?

Geoffrey (05:13):

I think that we're moving on to generation, you know, 3.0 almost. When I started, you were starting to see some of the original firm founders start to exit the profession, the association, and their next gen stepping up. And now we're seeing an even younger generation entering the association. And that's really exciting for me because one of the things that I felt like the volunteers were really concerned about at the time and rightly so was just the general makeup of NAPFA versus the population. At the time it skewed a little bit older, like most financial planning at that time. I feel like they were really cognizant of that. And one of the pieces of the marching orders they gave us was how do we make this experience more frictionless, if you will. How do we make it a place where people want to engage and engage beyond just I have to do it because I'm a financial planner, that sort of thing, but really to tap into the strength and vibrancy of the community, to really associate with other professionals that are interested in elevating their competency so they can serve consumers in a more meaningful way—people that really want to grow and spread the mission and vibrancy of financial planning around the country.

Lauren (06:28):

I hear you on the frictionless piece. I know there's been firms we've worked with where they might be going after a younger generation and part of making things frictionless is the paperless, more technology focus, making sure time is used efficiently, those sorts of things. I'm assuming those are things that you all have been implementing and have been top mind as well.

Geoffrey (06:57):

Yeah. We're trying to go more and more digital, like everyone else. The audience we have currently is demanding it and the audience we hope to engage in the future is going to want it. So it's a place where we're making investments. It's not moving as quickly as we hope, but it's definitely moving. I think that's a signal to people that are involved now and those that will come in the future that this is a place where I need to be. Some other points of friction really do have to evolve to what it takes to be a financial planning professional in 2021. You think about the ease of entering the profession today versus entering the profession in 2001. From your preparation through your educational coursework to working at a firm, starting your own firm, acquiring technology, things like that, it's just a very different ballgame.

Geoffrey (07:46):

And we just need to have that clarity of purpose about where we fit into the mix. We're not gonna be an entity, like one of the networks that exist for advisors; that's not our bread and butter. We're a professional membership association. So we're focused on educational content. We're focused on community and networking, and we're focused on advocacy. And so what we really need to do is make sure we're delivering on those aspects of the experience so our audience really finds the value they need to continue participating.

Lauren (08:15):

That's fair. I know one of the changes you've done over the years, you rolled out a new website that is more tech forward. And I'd love to hear some of the thinking around that, too, and perhaps some of the goals to be able to better serve your audience. 

Geoffrey (08:33):

Yeah, I think we're in a really, I don't wanna say a unique position, because we have to serve a professional audience, our members, and then in some regard, we also have to be a place for people that want to engage with them. So really balancing those competing interests, if you will, is what was driving the changes that we were making. We were hearing from consumers, your website is punky. I'm confused. Am I a planner? Am I looking to work with a planner? And so we needed to address that point of contention. And then we also wanted to make it a little bit more easy to use for our audience. And it needed to tell a better story, if you will. I think we took the approach that it's never going to be done. As a marketing professional, you can probably appreciate that.

Geoffrey (09:20):

We're always on the cycle of, well, let's tweak this, let's change that, let's address this. So we really do pay a lot of attention to what our different audiences are doing on the site to really inform the decisions we're making from a development standpoint. And then also from a content standpoint, from a consumer audience, their primary reasons for visiting our website are looking to find a financial planner. So that's why we continue to make investments and monitor our Find an Advisor tool. And then also looking for content about working with a planner, the questions they should ask or other relevant information that might inform the decisions they make when they engage with a professional. And so that's always gonna be a high driver for us.

Geoffrey (10:10):

We need to feed that with content, and it's not just about having the technological capability to do it or place on the web to house it. It's about how we are creating the content. And so, luckily our volunteers are really interested in making investments in that area so we can feed that well, because I feel like that's what's going to drive traffic and interest for the foreseeable future. When you're thinking about it from a practitioner standpoint, what are their primary interests? One is connecting with other practitioners. So making sure we have that online community hub for people to ask questions relevant to the practice of financial planning, being a business owner, different client cases. The providers we work with are usually in awe of the type of traffic and engagement we get within our community.

Geoffrey (11:03):

It’s really, really interesting to watch the questions and the responses that happen between members about the issues that they're posing to one another. Members need to be able to take advantage of our educational programs. And a lot of that happens through the website. And so making sure we provide that capacity and then if you're a prospective student, you're a prospective planner, we need to have a way for them to become a part of this community. That really is going to start at that front door.

Lauren (11:35):

How are you  reaching those prospective advisors or growing your base and trying to stay top of mind as a resource for the members that you serve. 

Geoffrey (11:51):

A lot of what happens from a member growth standpoint is organic. But then, being intentional also about having good partnerships, so partnerships with the academic community to help tell our story there, because they have a lot of influence over where a prospective financial planner looks for career opportunities and professional communities to engage with. So making sure that we're trying to stay front and center with them through partnerships with organizations like the CFP® board. You know, at this point in time, you can't be a NAPFA registered financial advisor without having your CFP® certification. So we have a vested interest in making sure their audience really understands what NAPFA is, and how we can be a vital part of their professional journey.

Geoffrey (12:39):

One of the decisions we made a few years ago was to offer a complimentary year of membership to every new fee-only CFP® certified advisor that wants to take advantage of it. That was driven by the fact of looking at the data and seeing that people weren't finding this community until year four, year five, year six, maybe even longer in the profession. And so if we reached out, tossed a little bit of an olive branch to them to say, why don't you give it a chance? Why don't you take a look at what it is that we have to offer? Why don't you take a look, what this community can mean to you, even as an early careerist. And we've been very lucky that the conversion rate of those individuals who have taken advantage of that opportunity, they've stuck around when the time came after that one year was up and they actually had to pay some, was because they landed at fee-only firms that saw the value of them being in this community. And for some, it was because, you know what, I personally see the value in this. And so I'm gonna pay for it outta my own pocket.

Lauren (13:41):

Yeah. That makes sense. They're able to kind of try before you buy, if you will, or start to build those relationships in that community and then see how it applies to their short- and long-term professional growth. 

Geoffrey (13:55):

Yeah. And when you think about it, there are a lot of fee-only firms for sure. They tend to skew smaller. So just the availability and inventory of professional opportunities in this space is a little bit different than it may be in some other segments of financial advice and financial planning. So anything we can do to open the door and welcome these individuals in, we wanna make sure we're doing it.

Lauren (14:20):

Absolutely. And then you have a unique vantage point, sitting at the helm at NAPFA, being able to see some of these conversations advisors are having. You're able to see the inbound data from what potential clients are asking about, what's of interest to them. You've got these partnership connections. From your vantage point, what do you see, where do you see the industry going? And what do you think would be good? Where are some opportunities for improvement as well as you look ahead, either both from the association level or really more from the industry at large.

Geoffrey (15:03):

I think in the big picture, the people that founded this community were onto something, they were trailblazers, they had a vision and their vision is the reality. Now, when you think about it, the movement in our space is more toward a NAPFA model than it isn't. And that's really, really exciting because that means the opportunities for the association are really fruitful, really bright. That means we need to be able to scale up what we do in a more meaningful way. And we can't look at ourselves as the underdog anymore. I think a lot of what happened in this space was built on us being a challenger. I've heard the term, the mouse that roars, but we're not a small player anymore.

Geoffrey (15:52):

Our voice is definitely outsized given the number of participants we have, but we are an incumbent. We bring a lot of credibility to the table. And I think that credibility in the marketplace has been one of the high drivers of people being interested in what we do and bringing people to the table in terms of participating as members and just watching where this association is going. So I think as the broader profession starts moving more toward a fee for service model, I think it's gonna present good opportunities for us. And another thing I think we need to be thinking about is just how our firms are structured. You work with a lot of wealth management firms.

Geoffrey (16:35):

You probably see the spectrum. When I started, there was this whole thing: all the small firms are gonna go away. There's gonna be a consolidation. You're gonna have super regional RAs. You're gonna have national RAs, and that's gonna be it, small guys won't be able to compete. Here we are, and we still see a vibrant place for small firms, whether they're sole proprietorships or ensembles, they have a vibrant place in this market and that's really exciting for them. And it points to some great signs for the future. The big guys are definitely getting bigger and that's good for them. We need enterprise-level firms, but also need some of the middle market and smaller firms to be able to compete as well.

Geoffrey (17:17):

And the tools and the capacity are there for them to be able to do so in a really meaningful way. So we just need to do what we can do to nurture that. Some of the other things that I think are on the horizon, challenges, opportunities, it's just what we're doing in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. When you think about the demographics of this country, how they're changing, the demographics of financial planning need to shift as well. And I like to say this is one of the areas where we're not competing. You know, there isn't a NAPFA viewpoint on DEI; there isn't an FPA viewpoint on DEI. There isn't a BD world position on DEI. This is one of those things where we all can win by making sure that financial advice and financial planning is more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive.

Geoffrey (18:04):

So we need to start thinking about that from an advocacy standpoint. There's still so much that needs to be done from a regulatory and legislative standpoint. We took a few steps forward during the Obama administration. Then we took a few steps back during the Trump administration. And so we just need to keep fighting the good fight to make sure consumers across this country have access to fiduciary-level advice that's delivered in their best interest. So that's something that will be a strategic priority for this organization for forever. So we can say that every American, when they decide to engage with a financial advisor, they're doing so under a fiduciary standard of care.

Lauren (18:46):

That's exciting to hear you share all of that. So like I said, I think you're at a very unique vantage point to be able to see everything that's going on. And is there anything in particular you feel NAPFA as an organization is doing  to be able to step up, to meet those challenges beyond what you've already shared?

Geoffrey (19:09):

I just think the investments in the foresight that our volunteer leadership has in terms of wanting to lead on issues of equity inclusion, wanting to lead on an advocacy agenda, that's really member-led, member-driven, but consumer-centric. Meaning when we go to Washington and we start talking about fiduciary, we hear sometimes that's very self-serving. Well, it's self-serving, but it's also the right thing to do. It means our members have committed to this because they know it's the right thing for the public. And so that's why we will doggedly pursue fiduciary-level advice for all Americans. I think some of the other things that are really, really exciting for us are the fact that awareness of financial planning is mainstream.

Geoffrey (19:59):

People know what financial planners do. They may not know it at a deep level, but I think they have an understanding. I think there's still some work we can do to help that story. But again, that's not something we're competing against anyone else on. The CFP® board has a great awareness campaign that benefits the entire profession. It's really interesting that I'll talk to my peers and they're like, oh, I saw this commercial. It was about getting a financial plan. Is that your organization? I'm like, well, that's not ours, but we've got 4,400 members that can help you pursue that if you wish. So it's really been exciting to watch that take place, just Americans’ awareness of the term fiduciary. It was like overnight this change happened where now I hear from advisors, it's like probably nine outta 10 clients that come in, potential clients that come into the office, they ask the F-word question. So I like to think this organization, currently and in the past, plays a pretty significant role in helping to create those conditions. And that's a responsibility to take very seriously into the future as well.

Lauren (21:14):

Yeah, that's not an easy task. And it becomes less jargony to the public. A lot of jargon is easy to throw around. I think of how sophisticated a particular investor is, or an individual, and those are questions that come up, but to be able to say you’re a fiduciary and what that value set means and for it to be translated on a one-to-one basis is valuable.

Geoffrey (21:44):

And it's also helpful. I remember when I started and was meeting members of the consumer financial press and asking, well, why don't you write more stories about this? Don't you think it would be helpful if Americans read this in whatever their paper choice was. And they're like, because people don't understand it. Because I'd have to spend too many words explaining what everything means for it to be meaningful. Now the fact that they can say it and people understand it, internalize it, and then share it when they're having conversations with the professionals they're seeking to engage with is really exciting. 

Lauren (22:20):

Very good. So just a few more questions here. I’d love to just ask over the years that you've been with NAPFA, is there anything you're really proud of that you feel was a really big win, maybe for the industry at large or for the organization, but anything that you're especially proud of, you'd like to share.

Geoffrey (22:42):

You know, there's a few actually. I think just the work we did with our partners in the financial planning coalition around on the DOLs Fiduciary rule, even though it was short-lived, being a part of a group that was one of the loan industry voices advocating for more regulation on behalf of the public. That was pretty exciting, knowing we were at the center of those conversations, that was just really rewarding because as an association professional, I could probably have gone my entire career and not worked on anything that would've been that meaningful to so many people in this country as what we were doing back then. I think the organization's work when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion was small, but we started our initiative well before a lot of others in this and we're chipping away at it and doing some meaningful work and we have a lot of good engagement on a number of dimensions when it comes to DEI.

Geoffrey (23:37):

So that's really exciting. We've recently transitioned leadership from our Gen 1 leadership over to our second generation. It's interesting and exciting to see what their vision is and what their ideas are and how that could transform not only the association, but the profession as well. Just watching the community evolve, grow, and change and age down a little bit. I remember walking into my first NAPFA conference in Philadelphia in 2013 and thinking, wow, this is a very mature audience. And it was because there were a lot of people, and some of them are still around today, that were there essentially at the beginning. That's one of the exciting things about financial planning and this association, the fact that you can have a very long and vibrant career, and still meaningfully serve your clients and meaningfully engage with other professionals.

Geoffrey (24:37):

But that gives us the opportunity to have just a great generational knowledge transfer. And it's coming from a place of caring and a handoff of what my generation did in our time. We created the conditions, we laid the foundation, and you know what, now it's your turn to take it to the next level. We're still pretty young. So that means we have a lot of runway to see that happen, again and again. And so that's just one of the things I'm proud of, doing our part to keep that first generation engaged, but then also to steward the next generation's entry and ownership of where we're going as an organization.

Lauren (25:15):

It's interesting. I didn't make this parallel between sort of a unique lens as well. Being able to talk with a number of firms across the country at various stages of their business and there's parallels between what you're seeing at large and also what we're seeing and having conversations around. There might be an owner who is looking to transition the firm to a younger generation, questions about the future regarding technology, regarding how do you take someone who's a main rainmaker to now being spread across partners, or the DEI initiatives, or really challenging sort of defining value sets within a firm. So what you're saying from a NAPFA perspective, and I think a lot of the work you're doing, is you certainly have your finger on the pulse, because I feel it, too, but in a different way. But for those conversations there's alignment there. 

Geoffrey (26:13):

Yes. And I think that's just representative of the fact that the work and the interests of our audience easily becomes the work and the interests of the association. So we're member-led, and that doesn’t mean it's because of the volunteer leadership, it's because of where they see themselves going professionally, where they see themselves going from a business standpoint. And we need to be responsive to that and make sure we're programming to keep pace. And ultimately I hope to be a little bit ahead of them so we can help to drive some of the dialogue they're having internally or very least be responsive to the dialogue they're having and create resources and bring content to bear to help inform the work that they're doing.

Lauren (26:58):

Absolutely. Well, that brings me to the last question here. Are there any particular resources or webpages or things you think would be helpful to point folks to, to learn more?

Geoffrey (27:10):

Yeah. I think definitely our diversity equity and inclusion toolkit. We put that together during the pandemic. So it was just very timely. <laugh> It had been in development before the pandemic, but that gave us the opportunity, the time, and the space to really focus on it. So it's really geared toward firm culture, hiring practices, taking care of your people, all from a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. That's one resource I would love to point people toward. The website, our online community, has great resources for people that are already participating in the community. If they're not members of NAPFA, we've got a network of study groups all around the country, so we'd love to have them take a test drive.

Geoffrey (27:58):

They're starting to return to some in-person experiences. So it's a good way for someone who's thinking about potentially joining the association to plug in. And then we do have a conference coming up in early May in Atlanta. I know we don't like to give dates for things like this, but I think it's just a good way to engage with this community. We've been consistently rated very high on our content, the networking opportunities, the community- building opportunities. And so I think for anyone who isn't already a part of this community, it's just an easy place to plug in. So I'd love to point toward that. 

Lauren (28:41):

Great. Well, thank you for your time today and for sharing some insights. I greatly appreciate it. And thank you for all the work you do and for the NAPFA community and everything that you do for the industry at large. 

Geoffrey (28:55):

Thanks for having me and thanks for being such a good partner for NAPFA and all of the firms that are part of our community. Everyone speaks very highly of you and your colleagues and we've witnessed it firsthand. And so I look forward to working with you guys in the future. 

Lauren (29:09):

Aw, we appreciate it. Well, thank you again for your time this evening and looking forward to staying in touch.

Geoffrey (29:14):

All right. Thanks a lot. 

If you enjoyed this spotlight, learn more about what NAPFA has to offer members on its website. 

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