Cybersecurity & Fee Models: DOL Guidance for Plan Sponsors

[0:02] JD: Kathleen's. Kathleen's gonna come up here. Thanks. Usually we come off stage for that. It's a lot more dramatic. It is super fucking awkward when you sit up here to Stuart. Kathleen, I think you're gonna swear. I'm not sure. It's great. Perfect. [0:20] Chad: Yes. [0:21] JD: Yes, we do. [0:22] Chad: No, we don't. No, you're awesome. [0:24] Mark: Thank you. [0:24] JD: Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Retireholics. Not your typical episode of Retireholics. We are coming at you live from institutional investors. [0:38] Justin: Yeah. [0:39] Chad: Think of the city. Don't mess up the city. [0:40] JD: 2021 Southwest Retirement Plan Advisor Summit. [0:46] Mark: Yeah. [0:49] JD: Why do they. Why do they fucking name these things? So long. [0:52] Mark: How did you remember that? [0:53] JD: I don't know. Welcome to everyone here in the audience. And welcome to everyone out there in Zoo World. We're psyched to see you again on another Thursday night. [1:01] Mark: Except for you, Greg. [1:04] JD: We're. [1:05] Mark: We're. [1:05] JD: First of all, we're humbled to be here. Second of all, we are ready to have some fun because it's been over a year. Well, since COVID That we've been live and on stage. So our last OnStage show was March 2020, and almost in the day. [1:19] Chad: We flew home the day before the country shut down. Terrifying. [1:23] JD: So. So we're psychedelic to be back here on stage. Thanks for having us. I'm so psyched. I'm so appreciative that I put pen to paper and I wrote a poem straight from my heart. You did. And if it's okay with all of you, I'd like to read it to you guys today if we could do it. [1:40] Mark: Is it okay? [1:41] JD: Is that all right? [1:42] Chad: Come on, Todd, say no. [1:44] Mark: Okay. I love poetry. Do it. [1:46] Chad: All right. [1:47] JD: I named this ode to Institutional Investor a treat. In our inbox one day, did I see an email from Cynthia with a question for we. It read an onstage show for our conference this year. Would you like to partake? We can provide lots of beer. Her vibe was so nice and welcoming, too. Unaware that we're not a professional crew. She claimed Institutional Investor was the firm that she repped. Yeah, yeah. Whomever, it's fine. You said free beer, right? We accept. Scottsdale, Arizona. They said that's where you should be. They'll be testing for Covid, so please come virus free. We don't have Covid. We took the vaccine. Thank God they're not testing for our STDs. The Fairmont Princess, as fancy as it gets and fancier still will be the Spirit speakers and the guests. Phil Troyer will be there an ERISA attorney that can really kick ass. Where's he at? There he is. Stick to your poem. Jd, Nova Scotia's own George Fraser, too. And advisor with class. Yo, you want a margarita with your 338? Todd Kading is here and he makes them great. Jason Roberts is an ERISA attorney that lived on a boat. Fred Reich lives in a mansion. Goat. Jason hates that he's not here. [3:26] Chad: Happy he left. [3:27] JD: Sorry, Jason. All you 401k freaks. Ready, set, go. Enough of this poem. It's time for the show. Big, big. Thanks for having us here. Now let's talk. Talk 401k while I enjoy my free beer. [3:40] Mark: It was not free, by the way. I'm gonna talk to you. [3:47] JD: This is the part of the show where we. Justin's gonna intro a special guest to the stage. And out there in zoom land, you know what to do. You're gonna rate him on 0 to 10 on how well he does. I would like for y' all in the audience to partake, too. Use your hands. 05.10. [4:02] Mark: When you get to just yell it. [4:03] JD: Just. Yeah, we'll cue you. Yell it. Justin, you know the drill. [4:06] Justin: Any 20s, we'll give you free beer. [4:07] Chad: Okay. Anything interesting? They get free beer out back. [4:12] Justin: Well, you know, I was really excited about the intro today. It was our first conference in 18 months, almost to the day. Back with the boys. We've got an amazing guest, an amazing audience, and Steve Wilk got up here this morning and said everything I had planned on saying. [4:28] Mark: Thanks, pal. [4:31] Justin: So, for those of you who weren't here, she's a collegiate volleyball player. She loves karaoke. She loves competitive kickball. [4:41] JD: That's weird. [4:41] Chad: Is that even said, by the way? [4:43] Mark: It's like a third grade sport. [4:44] JD: Okay. [4:46] Justin: She's a diehard Bills fan. In fact, she's such a diehard Bills fan that the buffalofambase.com posted an article crediting her as the first to ever perform the Flying elbow on the Rubbermaid table. [5:03] Mark: Yeah, there's no way. [5:04] Justin: Now it's grown into a national craze. Bet you didn't find that in your research, did you? [5:10] JD: I still don't even know what you're talking about. Sports. [5:13] Justin: Anyways, you all know the team. [5:16] Chad: The team. Go team, go Sports. [5:20] Justin: One of the managing directors for srp, Aaron Hall. [5:30] Aaron Hall: Thanks, guys. [5:31] Chad: You get the center? [5:32] Aaron Hall: I traded my heels for flip flops. [5:35] Chad: Smart move. [5:36] JD: Very smart. [5:37] Aaron Hall: Thanks for having me. You are so, so excited to be here. [5:40] Chad: Second. Second time, right? [5:42] Aaron Hall: No, I've never been a guest on your. [5:43] JD: She came she did after show, wasn't she? [5:45] Chad: After show. After show. Chat bar champion at. [5:48] Speaker F: Yeah. [5:48] Chad: Well, shame on us. [5:50] JD: We're super psyched to. To have you here. We got a lot to talk about. I want to get in a couple, like, set the rules for the games for the audience and everyone. And then we'll, we'll tap into these beers. But first, let's do a little bit of housekeeping on the games. We're gonna play chat bar champion out there in Zoom World. So you guys continue to do what you do in the chat bar. We'll check out the transcripts later. We'll pick a winner. But we'd like to then transcend that here to the audience. I don't know what the fuck to call it. It's. It's audience champion. At the end of the show, we will all vote for who our favorite audience member is. There's no rules. I don't know how many. [6:24] Mark: It's actually going to be the least favorite audience member could be. [6:28] JD: And they win all the prize, the cash and all that kind of stuff. So you can all compete for that. We're going to play acrosyn. We're going to play acrosyn as always. And what that is is you cannot say an initialism or an acronym. You can say my name, but nothing else. Okay, things. You know the drill. Things like you can say it now. [6:46] Mark: Don't tell us. We know. [6:47] JD: Arisa Tol. Whatever. Then you must drink from your penalty drink. Mark, you tell us, what is the penalty drink? [6:55] Mark: It's apricot flavored brandy. And there's no story behind it. We were on an app and we stumbled upon it and said, that sounds gross. Yes. [7:04] Chad: Purchase. [7:05] JD: Great. [7:06] Mark: $20 well spent. [7:07] Chad: We're just going to leave it in JD's lap. [7:09] Mark: Does anybody like branding? [7:11] JD: Just like Dr. [7:11] Mark: Drinks it, right? So, okay. Yeah, it's perfect. [7:14] JD: Especially cheap brandy. All right, Chad. And we'll be. We're going to be drinking beer. [7:18] Chad: Thank goodness. He took long enough. We went with a local brew Santan Brewing Company in Chandler, Arizona, I hear. Yep. So we're in for a treat. We had one request from Aaron. Has to be a hazy IPA. [7:31] Aaron Hall: Love them hazy IPAs. [7:32] JD: Love them. [7:32] Chad: Hazies. So that's what we got. It's called Pebble Head. I will let you know what it tastes like. [7:37] Mark: Are we drinking out of mugs? [7:38] Justin: Drinking out of my mugs. [7:40] Chad: You don't have a mug. [7:42] Aaron Hall: Okay. I'm. I'm not fancy. I'm not fancy. [7:47] JD: What? [7:49] Chad: Todd drink. Todd. [7:53] Mark: Yeah, that's negative. Points for you. [7:55] Chad: All right, My description. Sour it is what? It's fruity. Very fruity. Great. [8:01] JD: But it's fruity. [8:02] Chad: Fruit is subtle because the sour bite. I feel like you hid that from us when you told us we were gonna like this. I don't drink sours. Doesn't say it's sour. It is described as. [8:12] Aaron Hall: It's this perfect balance of sweet and sour kind of right there on the can. [8:16] Chad: I don't read things other than disclosure. [8:19] Aaron Hall: To be fair, it is quite, quite small. [8:21] Chad: It says thank goodness. I don't know what you're talking about. It's a hazy IPA with senses of tart flavors. Dang it. And stony fruit, tangerine. [8:33] Aaron Hall: It's delicious. [8:34] Chad: And passion fruit balances. I'm gonna go take my shot. [8:40] JD: Alright, good to go. Let's dive straight into topic number one. And I know a lot of stuff's been covered today. Maybe we'll give a different, more drunk spin on it. Who knows, maybe we'll get some value out of this. But Aaron, I recently actually used this piece to help an advisor I was working with. You wrote a bit on cyber security. Yeah, little white paper thing. I. I love it. Thanks. Can you summarize it for us? Like why now? Why are we interested in cybersecurity? And what are some of the little highlights for that? And then we'll dig deeper. [9:08] Aaron Hall: Sure, yeah. I mean, I assume everyone knows about the April 2021 Cybersecurity Guidelines, right? Not regulation, but guidelines. [9:16] JD: Who did those? [9:17] Aaron Hall: The Department of Labor. I'm definitely gonna suck at this later, [9:23] JD: but we got a pro. [9:24] Aaron Hall: So was that the only reason you asked the question? It's a bait debate. Well, you know, the purpose behind it, I think makes a lot of sense. Participants were suing their plan sponsors and then record keepers when nobody would respond. When they're losing six figure balances from bad actors being able to abscond with their life savings and smarter for the Department of Labor to Big word. [9:51] Mark: You gotta bring it down. [9:52] Chad: We wrote it down so we can look it up later. [9:53] JD: Let's just say obscene scone. [9:55] Mark: No clue what that means. [9:56] Chad: Well, not even you. [9:58] Aaron Hall: One of my takeaways earlier was lawyers have good vocabularies. Was one of my takeaways. [10:03] Mark: I'm not a lawyer. [10:04] JD: I'm wearing a robe, in case you didn't know. Walk away with Mark's job is to distract you. Try to keep on track. [10:13] Aaron Hall: I appreciate it. So these guidelines I thought were fantastic. Three parts. One for the participant, one for the record keepers. But the most important, I think for us as those who advise our clients was on the plan sponsors responsibility to vet their providers as to their capabilities in regards to cybersecurity. Because as it was mentioned earlier at our fabulous conference here, all record keepers and the way that they go about managing cybersecurity, it's not the same. So yeah, I wrote the white paper, we defined some of the issues, some of the court cases that started all this. And what I found really interesting was, you know, they said, hey, you should ask your record keeper a bunch of questions and then here's how you should evaluate your record keeper. And I have found that four of the six are pretty easy. Four of the six are relatively easy. The two that I think are the most interesting one is you have to not only ask your record keeper and understand what they do, but understand how that compares to others in the industry. [11:27] JD: Don't we do enough benchmarking already? [11:29] Mark: So that's actually tough to do. [11:31] Aaron Hall: Isn't that hard? So think about it. The industry itself, record keepers have done a great job at pushing all of their information to you. Right? You've all got the PDF in your in bin of Boom boom. [11:48] Mark: No, you said it again. [11:49] Chad: Said it again. [11:50] JD: You can't follow it up. Finish your thought. Wow. [11:54] Aaron Hall: Portable document format. Holy cow. [11:56] Mark: Oh my. Okay, you get 10 points. [11:58] Chad: That's a 10 point for audience no clue PDFs. That was, that was a triple. [12:04] JD: So finish your thought. [12:05] Aaron Hall: We got delicious. I'll finish the thought. [12:08] Mark: Is the whole. [12:09] Aaron Hall: So the, the record keepers are pushing out the collateral about how great they are. And that's great, but how do you then compare that in a meaningful way to all the others in the industry? So that's number one that I thought was really interesting and an opportunity for all of us to show our value. [12:27] JD: Can I ask, am I naive to think that principle nationwide Voya empower. The list goes on. And I'll just, I'll drink for this whatever sock 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They have. My assumption is they all have that shit pretty much covered. That's not true. [12:48] Chad: Okay, can, you know, but that can. That may be true for the large names that, that you, that you mentioned, but it's not true for some of the smaller quaint providers that are out there. I don't think they're. They're all good. [13:01] Aaron Hall: I think you'd be shocked. [13:03] Chad: Really? The large providers you think aren't checking those boxes. [13:08] Aaron Hall: There are a number of providers that are not doing a sock 2 type 2. [13:14] JD: I knew that was going to be a bad one. [13:17] Aaron Hall: That. Which, which I would think, you know, hopefully we can all agree is the best in class audit type. [13:24] Chad: It should be kind of an MV almost. I didn't get. That's a check. [13:34] Aaron Hall: I'm going to A.C.R.O. s on purpose. [13:36] JD: This is great. We can't, we can't spend. [13:39] Justin: Is it because it's so new? Why are they not rushing out to do it yet? Is it because it's not a rule? [13:46] Aaron Hall: Yes. No, I. It's not a rule. I don't know that they're not doing it because it's not a rule. And I do believe that one of the great things of this guidance is that because they're going to be compared to their peers, I think we're going to find next year a lot of them are doing. Sure those, you know, it'll be a [14:03] Chad: race, but many of their peers were already doing this years ago. [14:08] Aaron Hall: But who talked about cyber security before April? [14:10] JD: You're lying. If you were. [14:11] Aaron Hall: Yeah, to some degree. But to the extent of what type of audit that they have and how that compares to, I think this in depthness. [14:19] JD: Do we know, do we know those four cases in your white paper, the actual instances where a participant had been money had been stolen from them. Thanks, Brianna. Do we know how those occurred and did those come through a lack of these system and organizational controls 1, 2 and 3, or did those come maybe through actual flesh and bone, through a participant who made a mistake or do we have any idea? [14:44] Aaron Hall: Great question. My understanding is that most, if not all of these were not again through the front door of a hack. You know, what's the name of the light solutions, for example? Did they get hacked through the front door? [14:59] JD: No. [14:59] Aaron Hall: What happens most commonly is your information, just like mine is out there on the dark web. A bad actor gets a hold of it and they call every record keeper and impersonate you. [15:10] JD: There's the guy that did it. [15:12] Mark: I'm not gonna lie. When you're a good criminal, you don't do anything through the front door. [15:16] Aaron Hall: No, no, no, no. [15:17] Mark: That's not the point of being a criminal. [15:18] Aaron Hall: Not at all. So what's interesting is when we went down the rabbit hole of looking at vendors was to take a look at what are your protections in the call center. And this is where a ton of differentiation occurs. Some vendors are like, we know your pin, where you are, where your IPS address is. We can hear the stuff going on. [15:40] Mark: That's, that's, that's. [15:41] Aaron Hall: We can hear what's going on in the background if your voice. [15:45] JD: I love this guy. [15:47] Aaron Hall: My own dictionary. [15:51] Chad: Whatever. [15:52] JD: Oh, never mind. [15:52] Aaron Hall: Yes, please. At this point I'm acker sinning on purpose. This is actually delicious. [15:56] JD: It's not bad. It's actually. [15:58] Mark: I'm not mad about it at all. [16:00] Aaron Hall: Next time bring Malort and I won't [16:01] JD: say anything better than a beer. I'm drinking and drinking. [16:08] Mark: I have no idea what you're talking about. [16:10] Aaron Hall: So in the call center, really neat technology. But that is a huge. Maybe the biggest disparity that I found of some are just like, oh, what's your. What street did you grow up on? And what's your mother's maiden name? And okay, sounds good. And others are like you sound distressed because you're not answering our questions fast enough. So now you need to answer them. [16:29] Chad: Best thing you've heard from those record keepers that they're doing in the call center to stop this. I've got a thought. [16:35] JD: Because the coolest tech. [16:36] Chad: It was freaking cool. Yeah. [16:38] JD: Why are you putting it on the spot? Why don't you just tell us? [16:40] Chad: Because I'm curious if she has a better story behind it acronym there maybe call center. [16:48] JD: No, no. You're fishing. [16:51] Chad: Oh no, no, no. Not, not. [16:54] Aaron Hall: I thought the coolest piece that I, that I heard was the ability to understand if you're distressed or answering questions in a slow manner which through technology and through whatever this technology does it, it assesses if you're being fed in fluctuation, if you're being fed information or having to look up oh, what's my mother's maiden name? Like you should know that. [17:18] Chad: Incredible. For me it was the background noise. [17:21] Aaron Hall: Yeah. [17:22] Chad: That is, they're. They're listening so deep to see if there's any noises in the background that aren't normal for a home setting and an evening type call. And they displayed a whole bunch of samples. [17:33] JD: A bit of like incredible do that though. [17:36] Justin: I mean how do you go through that training as a person? [17:37] Chad: Person technology, [17:42] Aaron Hall: super cool tech. [17:44] Mark: Why are we working? [17:45] Chad: So that was my question around this, which is how are they accessing the money? It's got to be through call center. I would think participating. That's where they're getting access. [17:56] JD: I have one other questionnaire to wrap this subject and move on to some other. [17:59] Chad: I've got another one. [18:00] JD: So the last part of the Department of Labor guidance was for the participants themselves. Like little education for them. So I have kind of a two part question for you, Erin. One, I mean do you think that that's really where the Breaches might happen a lot is with, you know, participants not understanding how to protect their information. And then two. Will advisers start to add that. Are you going to add that to like a classic participant education meeting where you talk about asset allocation and all these things and then you say, all right, let's talk about how to protect your, your cyber security ship. [18:36] Aaron Hall: Thank you for the question. [18:38] Mark: What's your language? [18:39] Aaron Hall: At Strategic Retirement Partners, we do a quarterly national participant webcast. And In February of 2021, we did a safer online webcast prior to April, you know, guidelines coming out, so. Absolutely. But that's why it's so important to vet your record keeper, because we know that people, certainly not 100 of them, you know, are gonna, are gonna go through that. So if we can catch background noise and someone's being those little things, then that's how we protect the masses. I think both are important because in the retirement plan, that's important. But what. What about. I just heard a story. Okay, so you guys know the app next door? I just caught a next door thing that was like a lot of lost animals on this. Animals. Somebody posted about her mother who, who, who's was subject to phishing and cybercrime and, you know, maxed out her, her home equity line of credit. [19:32] JD: Nice. [19:35] Aaron Hall: I'm right here with you. Although that's delicious. Can I just have more? No, it was like somebody called. [19:43] Mark: Oh. [19:43] Aaron Hall: So I'm just saying I learned about it on next door. And next door is like Facebook for your town. [19:48] JD: But you said. You said. Did you say is he. [19:51] Aaron Hall: Did I say up? I said I was on next door. [19:53] JD: He's in the running for a champion of the audience. [19:55] Aaron Hall: You're just trying to get. So anyway, that's okay. Retirement plan is one thing, but you have so many other accounts. [20:03] Chad: I got, I got one more question. And granted, I might count for all our chat. [20:08] JD: Always under the bus. [20:09] Chad: We're third party administrators. The compliance and everywhere. When you look at this industry and you look at the different service providers, who is the most vulnerable? Because I don't think it's the record keepers. [20:19] Aaron Hall: I agree. [20:21] JD: Yeah. [20:21] Chad: And that's issued to me. In our space, there are many old school third party administrators that have zero technology and zero cybersecurity protection. [20:31] JD: If I was counseling a criminal that wanted to do this. And again, I own a third party administration firm, that would be my advice. [20:39] Chad: Yeah. [20:39] JD: Let's look across the country. Let's find some smaller TPAs run by my. Yes, dang. Run by my father's generation. And let's go find the cracks and holes in their system and their personnel and let's exploit it. [20:53] Aaron Hall: I know it has to start somewhere, and I think it makes the most sense to start with the record keepers. But if you look at the guidelines, it doesn't say record keepers. It says service providers. And I agree, third party administrators are not yet. I think we're trying to. We're trying to, you know, walk before we run. Absolutely. Y' all are next in regards to having to show what you're doing and I don't envy your position. [21:19] JD: Well, I do. I think it's a great opportunity. [21:21] Aaron Hall: It's an opportunity for. I meant for the industry, but yes, for those who are getting ahead of it and using technology and doing those things. I, I totally agree. Opportunity. I just mean in general, if you [21:31] JD: have a strong IT guy. Have you met my IT guy? [21:36] Aaron Hall: Information? [21:38] JD: I was trying to tell a joke. I said my Internet technology guy is drinking course lights over there. [21:43] Aaron Hall: Information. Thank you. [21:45] Mark: Brandon, it's two for you. All right, moving on. [21:49] JD: Do your, do your clients appreciate this? Do they think this is cool and new and different? Is this a value add? [21:55] Chad: No, thanks. [21:56] Mark: I'm gonna answer for you. No. Don't they expect it? I mean, come on. [22:00] Aaron Hall: Do they expect me to be an expert on cyber security of record keepers? [22:03] Mark: They just expect the fact that it's happening. [22:06] Aaron Hall: To some extent, you're correct. To some extent, you're correct. What they appreciate is that Department of Labor guidelines came out. Department of labor guidelines came out before. And we have an entire process that from soup to nuts can document their process for doing so. But to some extent, yeah, they expect us to do that because we've trained them on how awesome we are to do the right thing for them and be on top of it. [22:33] JD: Well, because of your paper, I partnered with an advisor of ours like three days ago, and it's a fairly large client of ours, a big, big bank. And we went in to do a normal fiduciary review and I had prepped him to add banks, got a lot of money to add cybersecurity to the agenda. And I used your thing as kind of my guide just to let them know, hey, all good. The advisor and I are going to begin this project for you to look at benchmark and see, see if you got any gaps in this stuff. And I made the comment of. Because what we don't want to have happen is one of your participants come to you and say, hey, 250k is missing from my account and I have to Tell you, after all the reviewing the funds and the scores on the funds and going over the legislative updates and secure act. Oh, fuck 2.0. Setting up every community for blah blah, blah. And they were stoked. They were really engaged in a way that I hadn't seen them be engaged in the past. And we left that meeting, that zoom meeting and the advisor comedy is like, this is phenomenal. Like I really feel like they think I'm doing something more for them. I was like, you are, buddy. Now we just got to figure out how the fuck we're gonna do it. [23:42] Aaron Hall: If your regular review, if your regular reviews are going over investments for 90% of it, then yes, this would seem [23:51] JD: it's a good thing. Okay, let's have some fun. Let's mix it up a little bit. We are going to Brandon spin the wheel of ice. But before we spin it, you are involved in this too. [24:02] Aaron Hall: Let's do it. I'm ready. I'm ready to. Oh, I don't get my own brand. [24:06] JD: You do. This is a random wheel. It'll pick one of us. You have to pick which retire holic you'd like to attach to. [24:13] Mark: Yep. [24:13] Aaron Hall: Okay. [24:14] JD: And if it lands on them, then you have to drink along with them. [24:16] Aaron Hall: I'm ride or die with Justin. [24:17] Chad: Just wait. Hopefully it doesn't happen. [24:19] Justin: Love you. [24:20] Chad: We don't have the makers so we're hoping it doesn't land on froze. If it does, I'll grab it. [24:25] Mark: No, just put brandy in shirt of brandy in it. [24:27] JD: Put the brandy in it. Go ahead, do the dog. [24:29] Aaron Hall: By the way, I'm not to jinx it, but it's been how long since it came up, everyone? [24:35] JD: Oh, long. [24:36] Chad: It was like two weeks ago. We got everyone. [24:38] Aaron Hall: It's a long time. [24:39] JD: Yeah. Aaron didn't pick which first I did. [24:45] Aaron Hall: I said ride or die was Justin, [24:47] Chad: cuz Justin never gets it. [24:51] JD: I only have to pound the smear Enough ice. I don't have to. [24:54] Mark: Now we lose our host of the shows. [24:55] JD: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you guys, you know what I [24:58] Aaron Hall: want to go back to? I want to go back to Zima [25:01] Mark: Z. [25:03] Aaron Hall: I went to college too. [25:06] JD: This is actually a perfect time. [25:08] Chad: You drop skittles in Chang the color. I didn't know. [25:11] JD: Last night when we were drinking, I told these guys, I'm like, okay, live show, it's been a while. Don't banter among yourselves. The audience doesn't want to see you. Look what they're fucking doing. [25:20] Mark: That's why you put me next to you. [25:22] JD: This is perfect. While I Labor on this. We have recently put out a listener line. Oh, that's good, Brandon. So it's 1-833-Robe-Guy, I believe you can call in, leave a message after the beep. Gotten a lot of them. Some of them are. [25:38] Mark: Some are weird. [25:39] JD: Pretty weird. Some they're normal. Brandon has grabbed a few and we'll listen to them and then maybe it'll start a conversation. So we're gonna hear from you out there in the world. That called in and left a message, Greg. The listener line. [25:54] Aaron Hall: Hello. [25:55] Speaker F: Hello there. I just wanted to give you guys a recall from. I've been a big fan for such a long time, and I just. I just adore that big bald guy who's on the show. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, I just want to run my nails. [26:21] Chad: Wow. Hey, Brandon, trace that. Get that number. I might want to trace that number. [26:28] Mark: Why do you prep us for that? [26:30] JD: You've reviewed these, right? They're not gonna say anything weird. Okay. Cynthia's like, whoa, hang on. [26:35] Aaron Hall: I love the idea that you guys don't know. [26:37] Mark: We have no idea. [26:38] JD: Play another one. [26:41] Speaker F: Oh, the weather outside is frightful. Retire Hollister. Delightful. [26:49] Justin: I'm gonna ask him. [26:50] Speaker F: But since there's nowhere it can go. The show blows. [26:54] JD: The show blows. [26:55] Chad: The show blows. [26:59] JD: He's not wrong. Not slim. I'm sure we get positive reviews. All right, and one more. [27:09] Justin: One more. [27:10] JD: Jeez. [27:11] Speaker F: Hey, guys. This message is for jb. This is Kate Clark, one of your favorite advisors, and I'm on the ride home and listening to my favorite podcast, Retireholics, and just came to the episode with Josh Itzo where JD literally just broke my heart. He just said that there are no advisors out there in the micro plan space that are consulting with their plan sponsors about paying the record keeper fees out of pocket as a deductible business expense versus leaving them in the plan. I'm crushed. It's as if I don't even freaking exist. Katie, there are advisors that do that and I happen to be one of them. [28:06] Chad: Thanks. Okay, I gotta keep you about that one. [28:09] JD: Thank you, Kate, for calling in one. I don't believe I. [28:13] Chad: Serious one. Serious. Thank you, Kate. [28:15] JD: Well, Brandon's picking from those. Okay, if I. Goddard. She was saying she sets up her clients to write a check for their services, potentially for her as an advisor. [28:28] Chad: For the record, I was gonna say her point was record keeping fees. [28:30] JD: Record keeping service specifically. Most third party administrators do a lot of that with a little sliver of revenue share. Aaron, you're a Guest kick the question to you what your clients average, what, 10 to 15 million or something? [28:45] Aaron Hall: 12.756, 8. [28:47] JD: I'm pretty damn good. Then do you have clients or what percentage? If you're willing to share where you say, look, it's not going to. Actually, I'm not, I shouldn't say. It's not going to be an asset charge. It could be a fluctuating charge. It's just not going to come from the participant accounts. You're going to bill the client, they're going to write a check for it. Do you do that? [29:06] Aaron Hall: Yeah. So let me pull from my old Paychecks days. I used to work at Paychecks and don't get mad at me. I know, hey, I'm just saying, I used to work there and I learned a lot. I learned a lot at Paychecks. And what I learned is that companies put out a retirement plan in particular, start up a retirement plan usually for one of two reasons. The first reason is they want to be competitive and, you know, put it in place for their employees to recruit. [29:32] JD: That's gotta be the second reason, which [29:33] Aaron Hall: is the second reason. The number one reason is because they want to put away the money themselves. We do a safe harbor plan, tax efficiency. And so when I'm sitting across from a business owner, I ask her, well, do you want to pay for this out of your retirement savings or do you want to write off for your business? And most of the time the answer was option B. And so, yeah, I think if you do it right and if you're thinking about who this plan is for, who's got the money in it, then it makes a lot of sense to pay for it out of the company coffers, write it off. [30:06] Chad: Why is your example only in the startup space? [30:09] Aaron Hall: It was just my experience. That was just my experience. Just that from. Because mostly what I did when I was at Pedro. [30:16] JD: Does it change? Does it change from micro to small to mid to mega? Is it a different. [30:21] Aaron Hall: It depends. I think in my experience, I have clients, I have an eight million dollar plan that's very, very benevolent. And they pay for all fees, my fee, everyone outside of the plan. But I think the bigger the plan is, how much money are we talking about? It's a, it's a real small percentage of assets. So, you know, most of those are. [30:40] Chad: But it's a real small percentage of overall budget for that point, Chad, great point. So I don't understand why Even you mentioned $8 million client. That's benevolent. [30:51] Mark: Don't try to they. [30:52] Chad: I'm trying to stick to the big words, Mark, why that should be a common practice. They should be covering those costs. [31:00] JD: You know why? [31:01] Chad: And I don't understand. [31:02] Aaron Hall: Well, I think professional employer plans are going to make a lot of money. Pooled employer plans. Sorry, Pooled employer plan. [31:11] Chad: Nobody notices. [31:12] Mark: It's fine. [31:13] Aaron Hall: I was thinking of professional employer. [31:15] Chad: I was just going to say, we know solid LinkedIn plans, I think are [31:21] Aaron Hall: going to get a lot of traction with the mid market because they don't even want to pay for a $15,000 audit. [31:26] Mark: Right. [31:27] Aaron Hall: So, yeah. [31:27] Chad: And in my. [31:28] Aaron Hall: I have a $55 million plan, that's like 10. Tell me more about that pooled employer plan. [31:33] Chad: You know, that's a failure to me as an industry to help them understand what their obligations for this benefit should be. And we do it at the, at the micro level, the level that I'm spending most of my time in. We fail to press upon that client that these are costs that you should be taking on. They're a deductible expense. Great. But these are costs you should be taking on in order to offer an [31:58] JD: appropriate benefit, especially if you're concerned with your fiduciary responsibility and acting in the best interest of the participants. That's what I'm trying to get. Absolutely. And if. And if you're a $50 million plan and you've got 500 employees, you know, chucking out 75 grand, 125 grand to cover your plan all in is not a big line item. And here's what I think, and I know this is going to sound a little controversially not good for the room. I think we're a bunch of wussies. And I think that it's much easier to step into a point of sale and to a client and a takeover because you couldn't go to them and say, hey, I know that you currently pay nothing, but if you come to me, we're going to invoice you, the record keeper, the advisor, the administrator, whatever, $150,000. Do you want to come work with us? No one's got that gumption to get in there and do that. It's much easier to get in there and say, oh, currently you're paying 75 basis points. You come to me and we'll be 68. Like, let's do a great deal. That's sending our whole industry in the wrong direction. And no one's having this conversation enough. I surely know it's not happening in the small market. You guys tell me you've sold hundreds of plans throughout Covid. Not exaggerating hundreds in the micro market. How many of those are advisors talking to those clients about writing a check for those services? [33:23] Mark: Well, 0. [33:25] JD: 5 out of 250 plans. [33:27] Mark: We're talking about. [33:28] Chad: We're talking about it. Advisors. Different story in that space, but it's coming up on 20% of. [33:35] JD: Aaron, you're shaking your head at me like I'm wrong. [33:38] Mark: No, no. [33:38] Aaron Hall: I think you're making an interesting point. I think if I. If a company has a $50 million plan with 500 employees, what difference is, you know, $25,000 going to make to the employees versus taking that? Because we're talking less than a basis point or a basis. [33:56] JD: I'll tell you the difference. [33:57] Aaron Hall: But if we repurpose those dollars into something like a financial wellness program, a student loan repayment benefit program, because they're not. They're not. The whole idea of giving their participants more is great if the participants know it. But what you're talking about, they're not getting the credit from their participants for doing that. But you know what? They will get the credit for their participants. Putting a student loan. [34:18] Chad: Giving a match. [34:19] Aaron Hall: Doing a match. So I don't argue with the idea of the dollars. I would just rather see if we have an extra hundred thousand dollars. Don't. And you have $50 million. Don't keep. We got what we got. Let's do other things that are going to create more credit for you and retain and recruit your employees. [34:37] JD: I love that. And I'm not just saying that because you're here on the couch, but. [34:40] Mark: Yeah, you are. [34:41] JD: No, no, no. I like the idea of pushing it to something else that's beneficial for the participants. But I don't care if it's 1 million, 10 million, 50 million, or a billion. And if it's a 5 basis points or half of a basis point, what that is is cash in a participant's pocket. So you look at it as, oh, it's only two basis points. Well, it's only one. No, it's not. That's money in people's pockets. [35:06] Chad: I have a question. [35:07] Mark: Do you pay our advisor a flat fee or are we. Do we have base? [35:12] JD: No, I build that into the assets. [35:13] Chad: There you go. So that. That. [35:16] Mark: That's kind of a. [35:17] Aaron Hall: It's a CFO question. [35:18] Chad: Oh, what? Ah, there we go. Ding her, Mark. [35:23] JD: She's got a drink. [35:23] Chad: Chief Financial Officer. [35:25] Aaron Hall: Officer. [35:28] Chad: My question would be this. Aaron and I heard it from a couple other folks that spoke earlier today, and it Seemed to me what I heard is that there was this. Thank you. Negative mention. Flat fees, pocket. Why can't. Oh why can't we look at record keepers? Why can't we look at TPAs? Damn it. Why can't we look at service providers and expect a flat fee? Why is a flat fee a bad thing in our world? [35:55] Aaron Hall: Are you differentiating between record keepers, advisors or third party administrators? [35:58] Chad: Let's stick with record keepers and let's move to advisors. [36:01] Aaron Hall: Okay. [36:01] Mark: Okay. In the micro space there's already flat or billable fees built into the program anyways. [36:08] JD: Hybrids. [36:08] Chad: But most of them, Mark, are a percentage of assets that they're invoicing. It is still a basis point that grows as the plan grows. [36:18] Aaron Hall: Well, different record keepers have different philosophies on that. There certainly are record keepers who love to tout their fee for service schedule. The others and maybe the bigger names that we're aware of, they do it as a percentage of assets because they're, they're creating their fee structure based on a three to five year time horizon of growth of assets and the like. They're amortizing it so that they can charge a lower fee today knowing that in three to five years they're going [36:45] JD: to make up some with talking small markets. Right. [36:48] Chad: Like micro market talking. [36:49] Aaron Hall: That you think that's small market, you [36:51] Chad: think that's mid market. They're not profitable on a 12 month time period for a record keeper in mid market. [36:56] Aaron Hall: Not mine because I spend every dollar. [37:00] JD: They need six years of getting that to get to an asset growth. To get to a point of. [37:03] Chad: Perhaps that's an issue. [37:06] JD: That just sounds like dumb business. [37:09] Aaron Hall: But perhaps, perhaps I also know and think that if you have a conversation with a record keeper, they may be amiable to doing a flat fee but it's going to, it's going to equate to a higher percentage of assets today than it would be if you did a. [37:26] Chad: That right for your client. Little more up front. Average client retention in our world is eight years. Right. For most record keepers. So is that right for your client? If it be, and this is the trouble I fight with JD over is I feel like we're making a decision that is not right for our client when we go to an asset based model. [37:43] JD: It's old habits. It's just the way we've, it's the [37:45] Chad: way it's always been. Yep. Which is why when you're talking one and I've seen. [37:50] JD: Well we'll get to that. [37:51] Aaron Hall: You mean, you mean base fee plus a per participant charge. Because if an organization goes and grows and adds 100 participants, you're, you're not [37:59] Chad: saying you need to make more money at that point. Your service model, speaking from a record keeper perspective. [38:04] JD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [38:05] Aaron Hall: I think there's more amiable record keepers than we might think to doing a base fee plus participant model. [38:11] JD: We're just not asking, let me, I will tell you is we live and breathe and sleep this stuff and this all makes sense to us to have this conversation if we invited in a plan sponsor and a participant to listen. This is absurd to them. This is absolutely absurd. They feel as consumers that they should be able to go to a marketplace and buy something for a price and it should be that simple. It shouldn't have all this waving around now. And trust me, I'm part of the industry too, man. I mean I make hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue share as a third party administrator. So I'm not trying to point fingers. Frederician, the only one living in mansions. [38:52] Aaron Hall: But, [38:57] JD: But I also don't think we need to just keep doing things the same old way. We need to think about what it's going to look like in three years, five years, 10 years. And so there's fee structure might be an important thing to at. Look, look at. [39:10] Justin: There's some interesting thoughts running through the [39:11] JD: chat bar right now. What up chat bar? [39:13] Chad: Whoa. [39:15] Justin: A lot of people are talking about your legs still. You need to close them. [39:18] Mark: I'm wearing shorts. [39:19] Aaron Hall: I was gonna say ain't talking about [39:20] JD: me, but I'm wearing clothes. [39:24] Justin: They're talking about how, you know, there, there's, is there a, you know, a hybrid model that okay, maybe do. [39:30] Chad: Barbara talked about it this morning. [39:32] Justin: You know there are record keepers that are open to that, that flat fee model. They're saying, hey, maybe the advisor should be the ones pushing that more. They're saying, hey, maybe do asset based fee until a certain level of assets. [39:44] JD: Creativity, new ways. [39:46] Chad: Can I ask a question in the room? Because we have a different audience than we normally have in a given show and I asked the question last week which is are there any advisors that will tell a client I'm going to invoice you for my fiduciary services, the services I'm delivering to the committee. I'm going to invoice you, but then I'm going to charge the assets my time and effort that I'm spending with the participants. [40:07] JD: There's one. Yeah, there's two. Wow. I've never. Hey everyone, open up your phones. We're going to pull up that polling thing again. You guys want to do the polling thing again? We'll ask. I'm kidding. [40:19] Justin: Do I get to vote? [40:20] Chad: That's awesome, though. Kudos. Because I do believe that that is a flavor of future that none of us have really looked at. And I love that. [40:42] JD: You were talking about that earlier, Barbara, and I heard you. This convergence is real. And then looking at as an advisor, as more of a consultant to the HR department and the finance human resources. Yeah, this is good stuff. This is interesting. [40:59] Speaker F: Go on. [40:59] Aaron Hall: I will say from an advisor perspective, I certainly have followed that model that Barbara was talking about earlier of a fee plus a basis points. I haven't broken it out in a here's what I do for the fee, here's what I do for the basis points, nor have I charged for the fee. The base fee separate than the asset charge. But certainly just the idea of base, base plus. [41:25] JD: I don't even care how it goes. You want to come up here, Barbara? You want to sit right here? [41:37] Aaron Hall: Yeah, absolutely. If you're. If you're absolutely. For any non settler functions. We do Bill direct. That's a really important point. Settler versus non settler. [41:46] Speaker F: Yeah. [41:48] Mark: Settler. [41:50] Aaron Hall: Settler. [41:51] JD: Well, I just think it's something as an industry, we need to keep pushing that narrative and that concept and start to. And by the way, you don't have to go in and sell one thing. You could go into your clients and say, hey, these are your options. You know, like you could do this or do this or we can do a hybrid. And maybe as advisors, as in a community, you all could just kind of keep pushing it a little bit. You know, let's open up for a little more of billable and head down the right path. They get. It becomes palatable for them and then you can move further. [42:22] Chad: I know you want to move on from this topic. [42:24] JD: I still want to move on. [42:25] Chad: Let me make one last comment because I was bitching about this over there this morning to you. There was a question asked to our panelists of is it okay to have different service models for different costs? And both said, no, like it's defeating. It's diminishing the value that we bring. And my comment to you, jd was it shouldn't be whether or not Aaron offers different service models for different costs. It should be whether or not the advisor community offers different service models for different costs. If you have 2 plan Tony, which was talked about, 2 plan Tony should not be charging what Aaron charges, period. Because they're not. [43:02] Aaron Hall: I'm not greedy. I'm just worth a lot. [43:05] Chad: Well my point is is that it's okay if you don't want to have different service models, but the industry needs to because here we go. [43:14] Aaron Hall: There's an advisor in my market who will charge $15,000 for investment 321 fiduciary no matter what the size and good for you. [43:22] JD: Doesn't matter. [43:22] Chad: What about someone that charges double what you careful every day. You guys should be okay. [43:27] JD: Sure. You ready for the. The skeletons in the closets, the honesty and transparency. You guys as a sales team came up with this great. Won't call it low service, but it's low cost solution for us as a company. At Plan Design Consultants, we call it Kickstart where we do administrative services for $1,000 flat per year. Maybe like a third or a fourth of our average fees for a client. And we're really excited about this. And it's built around really simple design. [43:57] Chad: Right. [43:57] JD: We basically don't have to deal with do jack. Like if we make it a safe harbor, we make it a per payload period match all these different types of things. And it was a great idea and I was really excited about it. And this is to this concept of offering a lower service, lower cost solution to your clients service. I. I preface that, but it's in a sense, doesn't it have to be. And I was really, I was really excited about this. I felt like these clients are gonna [44:21] Chad: be like oh, that's two dumb dumb. We don't have to be certain testing. [44:25] JD: I feel, I felt like these clients were gonna be like oh wow, thanks for like this great deal. Like we're so stoked to be on this, this different program. Here's the fact of the world, I've been in this for four years now with this new program. They don't get it. They don't, they don't understand. [44:42] Chad: They do. At the point of sale my team [44:45] JD: ends up talking to them and they just don't. And by the way, how are you gonna stop that? Are you gonna communicate more to go to those clients clients to say hey, don't forget you're on our low service, low fee program. Like you should be happy we do less for you. And then doesn't that defeat the purpose in the first place? You need to communicate with them more and spend more time with them so they understand it. And by the way, just having that conversation is freaking awkward to say like, oh, we give you lower service, different stuff, but it's really cheap. Just be careful because I'm in the middle of that right now. And these guys love, love it because they sell a bunch of plans with it. But I end up with a lot of clients that I don't think understand that they're in anything different than the rest of my clients. And they expect and demand the services of the rest of my clients. And I'm kind of sitting here now going, shit, was this such a great idea? And what's ironic, be careful what you design for your advisor practices. What's ironic about that? [45:39] Mark: Tic tac toe. [45:41] JD: Hey, less you are. Move on to a fun game. Okay? It's everyone's favorite retireholic and everyone's favorite game. [45:55] Mark: Say it. [45:56] JD: You're supposed to say it. [45:57] Chad: Say it. [45:57] Mark: Slammer. [45:58] JD: Game. [45:58] Mark: Gamer. [45:59] JD: Game. [46:05] Aaron Hall: I have an old game console in my basement where I still play. [46:08] Chad: Is it or is it new that has like 70. [46:10] Aaron Hall: No, no, no, it's old. No, no, no. [46:12] Mark: There's a term for that. [46:13] Aaron Hall: It's the Nintendo. Nintendo. Where you have to go and put the thing in and the whole jam. Absolutely. And I love it. And I can never get past Bowser. And it makes me mad because when I was a kid, I could. Okay, go. [46:29] Mark: This is my time. [46:30] JD: Sorry. How does the game work, Mark? All right. [46:33] Mark: The watching audience and the interwebs understands. But for. For those in the live audience for the game, it's very simple. I'll ask a question. You're either game or you think it's lame. Is that easy enough? Does that make sense? [46:48] JD: You guys can play along. [46:49] Chad: Yeah. [46:50] Mark: I would appreciate some interaction because I think conversation up here is getting a little stale, if I might say myself. [46:59] Chad: Chad. [46:59] Mark: Chad's speaking a lot. Ok, my first question. And Aaron, I will always call. Come to you first. [47:04] Aaron Hall: Oh, thanks. [47:05] Mark: What do you call it? When. So let's say I call you, you don't answer, and then you call me and I'm like, decline. And I don't answer and then I call you back and you're. What is that? What is that? [47:17] Aaron Hall: Process phone tag. [47:19] Mark: Right. Okay, so now we're playing that game. [47:22] JD: Right? [47:23] Mark: But on a message, do you say and utter the words tag? You're it. [47:30] JD: Lame. [47:30] Mark: Lame or game. You're all liars. [47:35] JD: You all say it. [47:36] Chad: They all do it for sure. [47:38] JD: I do it. Yeah, you do. [47:39] Chad: I do it for sure. [47:40] Aaron Hall: I also never. Yeah, I don't. That brick thing that gives me all my information and runs my whole life, I rarely use it as a communication method, verbal to verbal, unless it's with my parents who even leaves messages. Yeah, right. [47:57] Mark: That's A really good question. [47:59] JD: I love you. [47:59] Chad: If you don't leave me a message, I'm not calling you back. [48:01] JD: Okay, so I'm just gonna text him again. [48:03] Mark: Here we go. [48:04] Aaron Hall: Lame. [48:04] Chad: Aaron. [48:05] JD: All right, jd, I've done it. But it definitely seems lame now that I think about it. [48:11] Mark: Justin, I did it today. [48:14] Aaron Hall: The audience has spoken. [48:15] JD: You did it, [48:20] Aaron Hall: Dad. Oh, you're into it. [48:23] Chad: Tag. [48:24] JD: That's Chad Johansson. Tag your it. [48:26] Mark: Yeah, he likes that. [48:29] JD: So I saw. [48:30] Mark: Did anyone else walk through the. The scary haunted house? Through the. Yeah, maybe. Anyone else get scared? [48:35] JD: Cool. Just checking out. [48:37] Mark: Anyways. There's pumpkins there, right? [48:38] Chad: I just curious. [48:40] Mark: Carving pumpkins. Lamer. [48:42] Aaron Hall: Game total. Game total. I have kids. I have an 8 year old and a 5 year old game as it gets. [48:47] Chad: That's. [48:48] Aaron Hall: And I make them pull the guts out. [48:50] Chad: Yeah, it's good. [48:52] Aaron Hall: It's good character building. [48:53] Chad: My son wears it like hair. [48:55] Aaron Hall: Okay, that's cool. [48:58] JD: Mark runs the show, the game. My kids are 23, 19. [49:04] Mark: That's for a story. [49:06] JD: So it's less of a thing when they're young. I think it's cool, but I'm over that now. [49:10] Mark: Not cool at all, Justin. [49:12] Justin: Yeah, not my thing. If I had kids, maybe, but no, [49:16] Mark: I don't care if you. I have kids. It's the worst thing ever. [49:20] Chad: Game all. [49:21] Mark: Game. [49:21] Aaron Hall: The worst thing is I live in California and like, if you carve it on a Monday, on Thursday, it's rotten. [49:27] JD: It's all falling. [49:29] Aaron Hall: And the first time my kids were old enough and I learned that I got to the gate, I got to the pumpkin, like way too late, went to pick it up, the whole bottom fell out and I. [49:37] JD: That's gross. [49:38] Mark: I've had that habit inside my house. [49:40] Aaron Hall: So now we carve them like October 30th. [49:43] Mark: Speaking of which, Fairmont, you're a beautiful place, but it's September, dude. Like, Halloween's not even close. [49:50] Chad: No, right. [49:51] Mark: It's September, dude. Okay, you're. Sorry. Talking sports. Jd, You're a football fan. You're a sports fan now. And I stole this one from Chat earlier. Forcing your kids. [50:06] JD: And you know, if you don't have kids, maybe niece, nephew, kid down the [50:10] Mark: street, I don't know. Kid, you sell in the store. Forcing them to like the same sport team that you like. And I'll preface this with I'm wearing a Raider shirt. And I told my daughter and my son, I don't care who you like, but if you don't like the Raiders, get out. [50:28] Aaron Hall: Yeah, I will go with forcing. Using the Word force as lame. Lame. But what I will tell you is my 8 year old son also rabid Bills fan and but it's because I like more bees with honey. [50:42] Chad: Don't act he sees my option. [50:44] Aaron Hall: He absolutely has. My husband is from Boston. I married him. [50:47] Mark: Anyway, there's a civil question. [50:48] Chad: You converted him to a bill? Oh, we've seen he supports Brandon. [50:54] JD: Play the ghost thing if you can. [50:56] Aaron Hall: This is my kids. [50:57] Chad: Is your answer lame? [50:58] Aaron Hall: He's not wearing. It's gay. It's. It's a lame in the forcing. What I'm saying is my kids love it because they love my fandom. [51:05] Justin: He looks like he's in more of a support role celebration. [51:07] Aaron Hall: Thank you, Justin. He's not wearing. Everyone else is wearing Bills. [51:10] JD: He's not JD Big. I forgot the question. [51:15] Aaron Hall: Definitely lame. I'll be your proxy lame for you. [51:17] Justin: If you do it right, it's going to happen anyway. [51:19] Mark: So. [51:20] Chad: Chad game. [51:21] Mark: All right. [51:22] Chad: Force them in. I'm all game tonight. [51:25] Mark: And usually I only do three questions, but I got a fourth bonus one because it's a little bit personal experience. I don't know, 11 hours ago or I can't do math. So showing up at like a legit button up, well run conference like this one at 8am like this morning in blue shorts and in a T shirt while everyone else was in suit and ties and then walking up and having breakfast. Lamer game. [51:56] JD: Wait, he was lame for doing that? I like that. I love you guys. [52:00] Mark: Okay. [52:01] JD: Wear a blazer, you punk. [52:03] Mark: Wow. [52:04] Aaron Hall: I will quote RuPaul, which is, you know, dress for, you know, the job you want, the role you want and you're trying to impress and all this stuff. [52:13] JD: That's an old mentality. [52:14] Mark: I pretty much have the job that I need. I don't job. [52:19] Aaron Hall: So I'm gonna go with Davis. [52:22] Chad: Mark, I can help you with that. [52:24] JD: Next is he knows I'll never fire him. [52:27] Mark: Yeah, I have way too much dirt on you. [52:29] JD: I. I definitely think it's 130 million degrees outside. [52:33] Mark: Yeah. [52:34] JD: So put on a beanie and a jacket, you know, and some clothes. You were game for wearing your shorts, Justin. [52:42] Justin: I support you, pal. [52:43] Mark: Thanks, buddy. [52:44] Speaker F: Welcome. [52:44] Chad: I support you as well, Mark. And I will say Dion says you gotta look good to play good. You gotta play good to get paid good. So I support all of you out there that dressed over the top. [52:56] Aaron Hall: I wore my most Arizona outfit for y' all today. [52:58] Chad: I wore pants today. I wore pants today. [53:02] JD: Okay. [53:02] Justin: This is the most dress. [53:05] Mark: Well, you know what they say. [53:07] JD: Thanks. [53:08] Chad: I Know what they say. [53:10] JD: You know what they say. That was another edition of the lamer game. Game. [53:15] Mark: Hold your applause. [53:17] Chad: Todd was with you. [53:18] Mark: I know. [53:19] JD: Todd's playing tic tac toe. We're running out of time. So one. One quick mini subject for you, and then we'll go to voting for the champion of the audience. And we've got some contenders. We've got some people here. [53:33] Mark: Todd's out for playing tic tac toe. [53:36] JD: You recently listen to you on a podcast. They're interviewing you and the host. The host said so many. The host said my rub disrupting mar. The host said, hey, we're finally getting out of COVID You must be excited. Get a leap. Yeah. Thank you. [53:57] Mark: Thank you. Yeah. [53:58] JD: Hashtag nerd alert. Thanks, buddy. [54:01] Aaron Hall: Going with C. Wow. [54:03] JD: The host says we're getting out of COVID and. [54:06] Mark: Oh, he said it again. [54:09] JD: You. [54:11] Chad: He didn't expect that one. [54:13] JD: We're getting out of this pandemic and you gotta leave Zoom behind. Get back to your clients. And you had a really. A weird response that caught me off guard. Do you remember this? [54:25] Aaron Hall: Yeah. I think what I said was, I told my business partner, I'm never seeing people again. [54:30] JD: Yes, that was it. [54:31] Aaron Hall: Yeah. Which is a little tongue in cheek. But the virtual model has created so much productivity harmony between my professional and personal career. Flexibility in the hours that I work, reduction in wear and tear on my car overhead, profitability and the like. So to the extent that I can leverage this experience and the comfortability that our clients have with doing these types of meetings virtually, I am leaning in 100%. What we have found is our clients are also leaning into a hybrid environment. Over 50% of executives are Gen X. And you know what? Gen Xers like me care about flexibility. Don't tell me. When I need to do my work, I'm gonna get it done. So if. If the executives that we're working with are also going to be flexible, hybrid, working from home, you know, models, this, the 401k meeting is the kind of meeting they want to take from their bedroom from their living room. So. And we schedule our meetings, you know, our next meeting as a last agenda item of the current meeting. [55:43] JD: So if we think you've violated. [55:44] Mark: Though you did, twice. [55:46] JD: Are you kidding? [55:47] Aaron Hall: I'm going to pull a. A Stallone in Demolition Man Acron just to drink the rest of this. I'm just going to take it to the face. [55:54] JD: What was that called? [55:55] Aaron Hall: Oh, this. The three seashells. He doesn't know of the three seashells. [56:00] JD: What I like that I heard from you was, I think a lot of us. And I've heard this today at this conference of like, oh, I can't wait to get back to normal. [56:08] Chad: And it's not the same. [56:10] JD: God, my clients. [56:12] Chad: If I hear that again, my clients [56:13] JD: want to get back to the same. And I saw this from a lot of speakers today. It was a vibe I picked up. And you on that podcast shocked me with this, like, hell, no. I'm sticking in this mode. And there's no right answer here. I do think that the wrong answer is don't get stuck in the old way and think that you want to just go back to running your model that way, because most clients and people don't, even if you do. And you thought the good old days were great when you could put on your blazer and go down to your client, meet with them and talk to the participants. Good for you, buddy. But your clients might not want that anymore. And maybe it's a hybrid. Don't you. Oh, yes. Yes, buddy. I love you, bud. Even though you like those pooled employer plans, I still love you. So try to be. Think outside the box. Try to evolve a little bit, and then we're going to talk about this a lot, but we can't run out of time. But think about creative ways that you can embrace it. I know you are doing this. And make it more efficient, make it more valuable for your clients. [57:12] Chad: We will never go back to the way it was. [57:15] JD: Tons of options. [57:16] Aaron Hall: And what I'll say is we've been able to add a virtual component to the engagement we have with participants that's gone over really well. So I will take that trade off of doing more work with participants. And Maybe that's at 7pm at night sometimes when they're home or whatever. [57:33] JD: But what does it stand for? [57:35] Aaron Hall: Pm really? [57:36] Mark: Again? [57:37] JD: Did he miss it? [57:38] Chad: Do you know, Todd? [57:42] Aaron Hall: I said. I said 7pm that's the third time. [57:48] JD: Oh, my God, you're so getting my vote for. [57:50] Chad: You win. [57:51] JD: Okay, we have. [57:52] Aaron Hall: Anyway. [57:52] JD: We're out of time. [57:53] Chad: The only. The only. The only comment I'll make is if we continue to go back to the way we were, we will never progress forward. We have to look at this and say, we need to find a better way of accomplishing what we always have. We cannot go back to needing to be in person for every single meeting. It can't go that way. Oh, you. [58:13] JD: You can. [58:14] Aaron Hall: You. [58:14] JD: You just might not take advantage. [58:16] Chad: A person can. Our industry cannot. [58:19] JD: Fair enough. [58:19] Chad: We cannot do that as A business. [58:22] JD: Okay, it's time for. Hopefully there were some things. [58:26] Aaron Hall: I killed it, y'. All. I crushed acrozen. [58:29] JD: Oh, what's acro. S? How do we do 11 out there in chat bar Champion. I know you guys were tearing it up in the chat bar, so we'll find a champion for you, and you'll pick your mug, and that still is in play. But for here in the audience, let's choose a champion. [58:42] Mark: Everyone gets a vote on account of three wins. [58:46] JD: Really? No. Okay, Justin, your vote from this audience. You're taking. Nerd alert. [58:51] Justin: Nerd alert. [58:52] Chad: Okay, Chad, it's Todd. [58:53] JD: Nerd alert. [58:54] Chad: I wanted to vote for Chris because he smiled at me a few times and it made me feel good, but I'm going for Todd. I can't leave Todd out of this. [59:00] Justin: Todd. Let's do good. [59:03] Chad: This Todd. [59:03] JD: Wait, which nerd alert? [59:05] Chad: Acro Sin Todd. Yeah, we'll call him Nerd alert Todd. [59:07] Mark: Okay. [59:07] Chad: Hey, I'll take nerd right here. I'm with you. [59:09] JD: Barbara was good. Yes. Thank you for the value, Barbara. That never wins. Wins in the chat. Champion. [59:14] Chad: Yeah. Value never wins. [59:16] Mark: Mark, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go against the grain here. [59:21] Chad: Anita, right there. [59:23] JD: Yes, for sure. I'm. I'm going. Nerd alert. So your champion for the audience, it's Mr. Nurdaler. You come on over to the table. We'll get you. We'll get you. [59:32] Aaron Hall: Thanks for keeping me honest. Todd, [59:36] JD: you go over to that table, [59:37] Aaron Hall: sit on the ground, and wait for [59:39] JD: us to finish the show. [59:39] Mark: We'll get some stuff. [59:44] JD: Thank you, Aaron, for being on the show. Awesome. Thank you, everyone here. We really appreciate the support. Thank you out there on the Internet. We love you guys for tuning in every Thursday. Thanks to the freaking nerds back there in the av. You guys killed it. You loved it. [1:00:03] Chad: Thank you for hiding my burps. [1:00:06] JD: Appreciate that, Brandon. I love you too. [1:00:07] Mark: Cynthia. [1:00:08] JD: Cynthia. Institutional investor. The crew. Your whole crew. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We're out. [1:00:24] Chad: Thank you. [1:00:24] JD: Cut.