Email Profanity & Scaling Your Advisory Practice

[0:00] Mark: I'm Paul Carlson, and I do not approve this message. [0:05] Chad: I feel bloated, Ate too much pizza, and been drinking really dark beer. [0:11] Justin: Are we got our cool intro music right now? Yeah. Kidding me. Hands in without Mark. EDC on three. [0:30] JD: Sorry, I've only been. [0:31] Chad: Do you think he just heard that and now he's going, oh, I gotta get out there? [0:34] Justin: This is welcome to Retire Holics episode four. You might notice Mark Palmini is not where he's supposed to be because he's in his office. [0:46] Chad: One would argue that's where he's supposed to be. He's working right now. [0:49] Justin: Is he doing business right now? Later in the evening. So he should join us here shortly. Oh, they're gonna go mess with him and motivate him to get here. All right. What do we do every show? [1:02] Chad: Chad started off with a beer. [1:04] Justin: Beer, 30. [1:05] Chad: Beer, 30. [1:06] JD: We're really doing this without. [1:07] Justin: Without Mark? [1:08] Chad: We are. That's what he gets. [1:09] Justin: This is how we. [1:10] Chad: So am I allowed to say this on air? I mean, we could show it to the camera. [1:13] JD: We can bleep it out. [1:14] Chad: Yeah, we can bleep it out. Arrogant Bastard Ale. [1:17] Justin: I may cuss once or twice. [1:20] Chad: This is made by Stove Stone Brewing. It's not down in Escondido, if you can imagine that. Another beer from San Diego area. [1:30] Justin: It says, you're not worthy. [1:32] Chad: Have you read the back? The back is hilarious. It starts by saying, this is an aggressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We suggest that you stick to a safer, more familiar territory. Maybe something with a multimillion dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it's made in a little brewery, or one that implies that it'll make you attractive with great sex appeal. Drink this beer. [1:59] Justin: Yeah, this fits. [2:00] Chad: Cheers. Cheers, Mark. [2:01] Justin: Mark. Way to go. Cheers, Mark. Awesome. Yeah. I'm not worthy. [2:10] Chad: Don't do it. Don't do it. [2:12] Justin: 7.2% alcohol. [2:14] Chad: I was gonna say that's. That's hefty. It's bold and strong. I would like to say I'm worthy, but I'll just stick with it. I'm worry worthy. I'm an arrogant bastard, and I'm worthy. [2:27] Justin: All right, we're gonna dive right into our first section, if you will. [2:33] Mark: Are they looking to get their first started without me? [2:35] Chad: We did. [2:36] Mark: Oh, come on. [2:37] Chad: Well, you shouldn't be conducting business at 5:27. [2:41] Mark: You know, I really like my Advisor partners. And, and we were having a good conversation. [2:46] Justin: Just catch up and. [2:48] Mark: Yeah, this is perfect. I am an arrogant bastard. [2:51] Chad: We know it, apparently. [2:52] Justin: I want to talk a bit about emails. And to start that, I want to let you guys know I've shared this with you guys a little bit. I let our audience know that this weekend, this last weekend, I was on my couch on a Saturday writing an email to a wholesaler, a sales rep at Voya, formerly known as Ing. [3:12] Chad: Are you allowed to drop those names? [3:14] Justin: Yeah, I think so. [3:14] JD: Okay, we can bleep them out. [3:15] Mark: Were you, what were you doing? Were you watching tv? Having a beer, having fun? [3:18] Justin: I think I was watching the Giants game. So I was in a loose flow and I, I used the cuss word. I'm. I'm gonna admit it. I used an obscenity in my email. It was a great email. It's a nice email. It was an obscenity used in a positive way, not in a negative way. I wasn't yelling at anyone. Basically, think of it like telling someone they're bleeping awesome. And within seconds I got an automatic reply back that basically I'm not going to pull it up and find it, but basically said this auto reply said, you used an obscenity and your, your email contained an obscenity. And if this email is for business purposes, you know, need to reach back out again. Basically saying, my email never reached its destination, got blocked because I used a cuss word. [4:04] Chad: I wonder. [4:05] Justin: I thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world. I mean, that could present problems for people that use cuss words a lot. [4:13] Chad: How many people use customers and emails? [4:15] Justin: Is that just a surfer thing? [4:18] Mark: I put in my subject to let it. [4:20] Chad: Oh, just. What if you had written back to compliance and said, yes, this is business related, please push it through. Where do you think they would, they would have made you rewrite it? [4:31] Mark: Probably. [4:32] Justin: Yeah. Yeah. My signature says CEO. All my stuff gets balanced status. [4:40] Chad: My. [4:40] Justin: My first thought was one, how did they get to that point? Like, did. Did Ing or Devoy have a lot of problems with obscenities? They needed to implement this. [4:51] Mark: It was all inner office, inner office stuff. [4:54] Justin: My next question is, do they have it at nationwide or principal or. [4:57] JD: I would have to find out. [4:59] Justin: So, yeah, either our audience can try. Try emailing your reps. You think he [5:05] Chad: actually got notification that that was. [5:07] Justin: No, because I resent without. I, I created a clean version and sent it. I felt weird. I rewrote the email and took out the. I said like, you know, instead of the bad one. [5:19] Chad: You probably could have spaced every letter out of. [5:23] Mark: You can put it in all. [5:24] Chad: You could have spatially. [5:25] Justin: Doesn't catch it with that. [5:28] JD: What about if you use like the shift and then the number keys? [5:31] Mark: That too. Yeah. You just gotta be creative when using. [5:34] Justin: Okay, I could work around that. [5:36] Mark: Or use emojis. [5:38] Chad: Next episode we'll talk about how to get around using bad language. [5:42] JD: We're not your typical tpa. [5:46] Justin: We all know what this is. [5:48] Chad: What is it? Introduce it. [5:49] Justin: We got a new wheel full of ice. [5:53] Chad: Look at how much I. I shouldn't [5:55] Justin: say I'm surprised cuz we're getting pro. [5:57] Mark: Everybody should follow us on Instagram because I've already seen it but I tried to act surprised but I'm not a good actor. So that didn't come out very well. We got a new wheel. [6:04] Chad: But your comedic is amazing. [6:08] Justin: I know. All right, hand. Can you spin the wheel or do we have to do it? [6:13] Chad: Oh, he brought in his apple. [6:15] Mark: Watch this time. [6:15] Justin: Who's it going to be? Who's it going to be? [6:17] JD: I'm going to guess. [6:19] Chad: Gonna be. [6:21] Justin: It's more. It's more. [6:24] Chad: Ladies and gentlemen, today. Oh, we got a peach bellini. [6:29] Mark: There wasn't a regular flavor. [6:31] Chad: Oh, of course there's a regular flavor. [6:33] Justin: Let me. [6:33] Mark: Let me beef it up a little bit here. [6:35] Justin: Put it on your Raiders. [6:36] Chad: He's willing to show Oakland now. He's willing to show Oakland because the Niners have apparently taken over the base [6:42] Mark: time out for a second suspension. This will be airing right around probably the regular season. [6:49] Justin: You're wr to talk this long. [6:51] Chad: So the. [6:53] Mark: The NFL season is upon us. So just I represent unlike like fellow retire holics. All right. At least we were like. [7:03] Justin: At least we. [7:04] Chad: I have to kneel. [7:06] Mark: I don't want to kneel on you. [7:07] Justin: He always kneels when he does this. [7:09] Chad: Yeah, usually Justin's not there. So [7:14] Justin: did they fast forward this this time? [7:21] Chad: That's a first. It's a first. Oh my gosh. You're like an animal of this. We can never not get you to finish it. What? [7:31] Mark: That was. That was really cold. [7:33] Justin: That's not good enough. [7:35] Chad: Oh my gosh. It must have been really bad. It must have been really bad. [7:39] Mark: I was just needed a regular flavor. [7:41] JD: This is gross. [7:47] Chad: You ask and you shall receive. There you go. [7:51] Justin: You got a chaser. We got you a chaser. [7:55] Mark: I'm not having the second one. [7:56] Chad: There's no way. [7:57] Mark: I'm just gonna leave that there. [8:00] Justin: All right. [8:00] Chad: Oh, my God. [8:02] Justin: We're going straight into Our next segment. It's really hard for me to do this because at both cameras, there's faces looking at me. I want to talk about. [8:12] Chad: There's two ladies, right? [8:13] Justin: That's not a lady. That's Justin Bieber. [8:15] Mark: Ruby Rose, right? [8:17] Justin: Yeah, yeah, we got Jabba and Justin Bieber. Okay. I would like to go into. And I honestly, I didn't prep you guys for this. So I'm gonna get kind of your organic thoughts on this. [8:26] Mark: I can't be a part of it then. [8:28] Justin: Everything you do scripted a hundred percent. That's what I thought. I've always kicked around this idea, and when I talk with retirement plan advisors, that this idea of kind of a more efficient business model for them. So I want to get you guys honest feedback. I look at advisors and advisors the same way as record keepers and as TPAs are getting squeezed for fees. You know, Justin and I recently met with a guy in Southern cal that charges 25 basis points across the board, [8:59] Chad: no matter what, regardless. [9:00] Justin: And he's proud of it because it's affordable. [9:03] Mark: I work with some same thing. Right. [9:05] Justin: There you go. And so I get process. [9:07] Chad: Which is what you're getting at, right? [9:09] JD: Yeah. Well, so to your argument though, what was it? [9:11] Justin: Do you remember the. To him, the 25 basis points? What. [9:15] JD: It wasn't the cost on the back end or what he's charging. It's how much time and effort is he spending trying to get that client? [9:21] Justin: Yeah, for sure. He was talking about how much time it took him to get it. But what I was trying to say is the same way that a record keeper tries to be efficient. Last time we talked about ADP paychecks, those things. And a TPA can. I've done presentations on that. Right. Cutting certain corners to do things. An advisor can try to be efficient too. And so let me just lay out this kind of. It's the year 2020. And what I think an advice are [9:44] Mark: they're flying cars yet. [9:47] Justin: Yes. So imagine. Imagine the advisors flying his car. And that costs a lot to fly your car around. Okay. Yeah. In 2020, they haven't got that all squared away. [9:58] Chad: 25 cheaper. [10:00] Justin: It costs a lot to fly your [10:01] JD: car in the new hoverboard. [10:04] Mark: Like the future. [10:07] JD: He hasn't seen that. [10:07] Chad: There's no hoverboard. [10:10] Mark: Bubba Watson and his hover craft on the golf course. It's crazy. [10:15] Chad: We digress. Okay, so you digress. [10:20] Justin: What is. What does a typical advisor do? You know, what. What is their time consuming with. Right. They've got to put together Their, their review their fun analytics or things. They have to go visit clients, meet with them potentially on a quarterly basis. Just bear with me, they're meeting with them a quarterly basis. They got to drive their flying car there, get there, meet with them. They do education meetings that could be on a fairly frequent basis if, if asked to. They do one on one meetings with employees. So spake day. So I was thinking, wouldn't it be neat to set up a model that could be affordable And I won't get into the semantics of it, but instead of. And you guys might throw fruit at me, but instead of going live to these meetings, why not set up kind of a technology thing where quarterly you're sending them a packet via email, you know, PDF'd packet with a beautiful cover that explains what's happening inside of it. And inside of that is your, your fun check scenarios. And this happens at record keepers and stuff. And then in addition to that they had like you know, newsletters or you know, twice a month kind of updates to their clients. And imagine it's getting blasted out to two groups of theirs. Their plan sponsor contacts all the participants in the plan. And so they're staying very front of mind but using like a CRM, much like how we work in a lot of scenarios. [11:45] Mark: But how the advisor do it automatically. Done. [11:47] Justin: Yeah, yeah, you're his support staff. His or her support staff could be putting together and sending it out to be automated. And then also let me finish with recorded video type things. What I'm trying to do is create an environment where the advisor could one be very front of mind with her client to deliver a very professional solution. But three, have it be efficient for their time. And that can result in one of two things. They can offer it for less or they can make a slightly higher profit [12:25] Chad: margin on what they do or create a scalable book. I mean you've been saying this for years, scalable things and people are listening. I don't know if you knew, but Hancock has created that. So Hancock, when you set up a case, you can go into the site as an advisor and you can click participant and plan sponsor experience over the next 12 months. And you set up an educational campaign and you queue which quarters you want and you queue pre populated things. Once you create your profile, it shows your face, it shows all the details that you want. Your phone number, your email address that comes on the top and then the bottom will be, you know, how's the market doing? Or Roth 401k contributions. [13:01] Justin: Why do you need it from the [13:02] Chad: advisor it all comes from the advisor. It has to go to the plan sponsor and the plan sponsor has distribute it. Typically unless they're getting all the email [13:09] Mark: addresses, they just have to set that up. [13:12] Chad: Yeah. And then they have to do it each year. So typically what Hancock is saying is this should be part of your fiduciary view. One of the things you mentioned is to say what's the next 12 months going to look like for our education policy? Now I will tell you this, and I've listened to this a number of times. It wasn't your dad, it was somebody else that I was talking to that told me if you'd go ahead and you set up an educational policy statement and you have a plan sponsor sign that you've now created another document that has to be followed. And if that policy is not followed, you now open yourself up to additional liability. [13:49] Justin: I hear you. [13:50] Chad: Interesting little, interesting little thought. But no, no, no. You and I, you primarily have pushed us for years. Create a scalable process. [13:59] Justin: Can we ask the man some questions? I think she's here. [14:01] Chad: What happens when you have 30 plans? You have 40 plans. [14:07] Justin: Let's, can we do that? Let's do the math. You have fifty year retirement plan bars, you have fifty clients and you're going to do two review meetings, fiduciary meetings. So that's one hundred meetings a year. You're going to do two education meetings. Let's do one. One education meeting. That's fifty meetings a year. That's one hundred and fifty meetings a year. And then stuff comes up, right? You gotta go deal with stuff. Like any of us. You're, you're booked prep time. I mean don't forget all that travel time, your flying car, you know, communications. [14:41] Chad: Yeah, but let's, let's talk about that. So you got 150, 200 meetings. You're doing them with six different, six different providers. So now you've got six different fiduciary processes that you need to understand. How do I pull fund reviews, how do I get participation rates, things like that. That's rough one just. [15:03] Mark: I'm sure this is already coming out. But you can also partner with record keepers and they'll do some of that for you. [15:10] Chad: Well that's what I'm getting at. When we talk about scalable book, JD is saying automate some of that process but also make sure you understand how your partners operate and what you can get. Like I learned this past week, not that we need to talk about it now, but I learned that American funds, record keeper, direct Bounces out of fund review meeting or a fund review notice 15 days after the end of every quarter. I didn't even know they did that. [15:33] Justin: My point to wrap the subject is that when you guys are meeting with advisors and I think plan sponsors benefit from this too. So any plan sponsors that are out here benefit from it is I think those advisors could spend a little bit of time creating their delivery and think about efficiency when they do it. And don't be afraid to use a little bit of technology as opposed to what I see out there. A lot is the good old fashioned. Roll up your sleeves, put together a thing, drive down there and do it. And there's a lot of value in face to face. Don't get me wrong, Understand. Talk to them, get their vibe on it, spark some, inspire them to find an efficient way to do some of this. [16:14] JD: Well, maybe the answer face to face and then. [16:16] Justin: Yeah, and it could be. [16:17] Chad: That's what I was thinking. So what, what's the number of touches you think an advisor needs in a year with a one and a half million dollar plan? Well, what's the number of touches? Let's say, let's say plan sponsor, kind of employee. [16:33] JD: Well, those emails will still count as touches. [16:35] Chad: Absolutely. So what do you think it is? I like quarterly, maybe four times a year. [16:41] JD: Quarterly could be the emails and then annually come out face to face. [16:44] Justin: I've used that touch analogy a lot. I always feel very uncomfortable and I [16:47] Chad: use it especially when you're hanging out with Mark. If what. [16:51] Justin: When you talk about touching clients, I always get uncomfortable. [16:54] Mark: Oh, I'm very touching. [16:55] Chad: I think so. I, I think you're right. I think it's four times a year. I think if you had had drips quarterly and then a single annual fiduciary review meeting that led to an education. [17:05] Mark: Don't do that. He will punch you in the face. [17:07] Chad: No, it's hitting my head. Is it a bad, Is it a [17:11] Justin: bad thing when you're a producer behind scenes going, cut that. [17:15] Chad: No more touching. [17:16] Justin: It's not really long. We're trying to stay at 20 minutes. So in the. And we're all. Are we even at 20 minutes? [17:21] Chad: Yes. [17:23] Justin: They say, yeah, this is what you [17:24] Mark: guys get paid for. [17:25] Justin: So we're gonna wrap it. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap it. [17:30] Chad: Okay. [17:31] Justin: We are wrapping the show. Episode foe. [17:36] JD: What row? [17:36] Justin: See, I wrapped it and I put a wrap. Oh, you did. [17:39] Chad: You kind of. You kind of rhymed and you were ending the show. [17:43] Justin: Episode four. [17:44] Mark: Yeah, that was horrible. [17:49] Chad: Coming from the guy. [17:50] Justin: Don't forget. Shut up. Don't forget retireholics.com with a K. It's been revamped a little bit. Hover over mark to learn about TDFs. It's super cool. Go check it out. Could change by the time you go there. [18:03] Chad: Sorry. [18:05] Mark: That one right here. [18:07] Justin: Someone watches it in 2020. That makes no sense. Help me out with this guy. They're flying cars. Social media. We've. We're on all the social media. So look at retire hawks and check it out. I mean what's more fun than following beer drinking retirement people on social media. [18:27] Mark: I can't think of any following 19 year old girls. Maybe [18:33] Justin: he's only 20. [18:34] Mark: Edit that. [18:40] Justin: Next show will be live outside at our Southern California golf tournament. If you're in SoCal, you're in advisor. You haven't signed up. Go to 401k golf.com you run a [18:53] Chad: risk for that of being on the show. Don't worry, we'll blur your face out if we have to. If you tell us complaints. [18:58] JD: If we get them on camera. Tell them they can be on camera. [19:00] Justin: We're good. [19:01] Mark: Oh, we're good. The tournaments are so big even Tiger Wits will be there. [19:05] Justin: What's the date on that? Because he sucks. He might have a scramble. I looked at your elbow. And yeah, she'll. For the. We'll be at the golf tournament filming outdoors, which I think will be really, really cool. And more good content. [19:30] Chad: We're getting better every time. [19:31] Justin: We'll see you next time. [19:32] Chad: Getting better every time. [19:33] Justin: Sometimes you cheers don't always get better. [19:36] Mark: Go Raiders. [19:38] Justin: There can be a curve, you know. We got better. Better. We flatlined. We get better. Right? So that's plan design consultants. We're smart, easy, awesome. We got a smart team. We're easy to work with and I'm super awesome. [20:04] Mark: Yeah, just start the show without your obvious star. That's perfectly fine. It's like no respect. Like Rodney Dangerfield, just no respect. Where would they be without me? Look at money maker right here. Retireholics Markaholics. That's what it should be.