Employee-Centric Plan Design & Engagement Strategy

[0:00] JD: See, I consider myself a fajita connoisseur. [0:03] Chad: Oh, yeah, connoisseur. [0:05] Mark: You just like that sizzling plate to come out, to draw attention to you. [0:09] JD: No, no, I. Oh, it is. [0:10] Mark: I'm purely in it. [0:10] JD: Look at me. [0:11] Chad: I got fajitas. [0:12] JD: I'm purely in it for the. For the fajita. That's what AFS stands for. [0:17] Chad: Fajita. [0:18] Mark: A fajita. [0:18] JD: Always fajita snacking. Okay. [0:22] Chad: Always. [0:23] JD: Always fajita snacking. [0:25] Justin: I think that needs to be the word of the episode. [0:26] JD: Yeah. [0:27] Mark: I used to. [0:42] JD: Home is D.C. home is right outside [0:44] Chad: of D.C. and you get to the conference, and how do you. You're like magnets. You and Potter Chin attract. And when I say attract, Houston's. I'm not. [0:56] JD: You know, so probably a month ago, we do this thing called the Wal watch challenge. Yes, the wallet watch challenge. And so about a month ago, Aaron, or as. As you guys refer to him, he sends me a text. He goes, hey, man, you guys text each other. He says, you want to put a wager on this? Top advisor by participant outcomes. [1:24] Speaker E: Man, I'm liking this award. [1:27] JD: And I said, all right. And so he said, if I win, you're buying me dinner. My pick in Vegas. And I was like, all right, that's a deal. And if I win, he's buying me dinner. And so he's like, I'm just gonna totally ruin your wallet watch. Like, you know, because he's gonna. If he's. He's so confident that he was gonna win, he's gonna, you know, take. I was gonna go to, like, whatever, [1:54] Chad: you know, Is it gonna be frugal? [1:55] JD: Yeah, no, it's gonna take me to, like, a steakhouse, and I was gonna buy him, like, a $150 steak or something. [2:02] Chad: Hey, Aaron is a confident man. [2:04] JD: Yeah. So I land, and I text him. I'm like, hey, are you here? And he's. He's. He was ready. He's like, all right, let's meet up. [2:12] Chad: And then we see you. The retireholics, as everyone would expect, are sitting at a blackjack table drunk as a skunk. [2:21] Mark: That's not how this worked out. [2:22] Chad: No. [2:23] Justin: Mark wants his. [2:24] JD: His credit. [2:25] Mark: No, I don't want credit. But they didn't. They didn't come to us. [2:28] Speaker E: I. I brought them to you. [2:29] Chad: Okay. [2:30] Mark: You're not that special. [2:31] Chad: I thought. I thought. So you guys come. You watch the mess that is at the blackjack table. [2:40] JD: I had a great time. [2:41] Chad: It was fun. [2:42] JD: I would. I mean, it was awesome watching you guys lose. You know, hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. [2:50] Chad: I would like to say for the record that as your employer, I did fund their gambling, remember? [2:56] Speaker E: You didn't take deductions. I didn't get to make a full time. [2:59] Chad: It is W2 comp. We're gonna make that right. We're figured out. We gross it up for. We'll put your deferral in there. It's all good. [3:06] Mark: I want that on my W2. [3:10] Chad: Then Aaron. Aaron says he's gonna leave. He starts to head off down the casino hallway. And I was. I was confused because I thought for sure you guys were. You came together. I think of you together as one all the time. I thought for sure you were staying in the same room. Maybe the same idea, but no Struggle buddies. Instead, you are competitors to the point that you're making. You're making. [3:40] Mark: There was an award ceremony today, right? There was that We. That we did not go. [3:45] Chad: We didn't go to. [3:46] Mark: Who actually won today. [3:49] JD: I blacked out, frankly. [3:51] Speaker E: Too many drinks last night. [3:52] JD: Yeah. [3:52] Speaker E: Yeah. [3:53] JD: When I was. When I was on stage. [3:55] Chad: Can I tell you what this guy won? The. What's it called? [4:02] JD: The tapo. Yeah. The top advisor by participant outcomes. [4:08] Chad: And Mark said he's one. He's gonna be all cocky that he wants. Let's pretend like we don't know and see how he reacts. So you've never said any of that. Stay calm. You're the champ. Big question. [4:21] Justin: Where are you guys going to dinner? [4:22] Chad: Yeah, where are you going to dinner? [4:23] JD: I don't know. That's a great question. You know, I've got. I got a crew back in the D.C. area that are deep into research on the best steakhouse in Vegas, California. I'm just throwing it out there. [4:36] Speaker E: If you need crew. [4:37] JD: I don't know if we can get. I don't know if he's going to cover transportation if that's in the cards. [4:42] Chad: If it's definitely not going to cover [4:43] JD: four plus fours, we might be able to swing that. All right. [4:48] Chad: Well, welcome, Alex. A. Yeah, I don't know how to. [4:53] Speaker E: You're not even gonna give it a shot? [4:54] Chad: I asked him last night if he could tell me. He said no, take a shot at it. [4:59] JD: So. [5:00] Chad: Alex Assoli. [5:02] JD: There you go. [5:03] Chad: I got it. [5:03] JD: Yeah. [5:04] Speaker E: Is he on? [5:04] Chad: Yeah, I got it. Welcome to the retire, Alex. [5:07] JD: Thanks for having me. [5:08] Chad: Super excited to have you here. I'm gonna explain a little more why we're so excited. But before we do that, like every episode of Retireholics, we must have the beer of the episode so Chad Johansen is going to grab these suckers for us, and first he's going to grab one for you. [5:23] Speaker E: Wait, we're definitely not drinking this. [5:26] Chad: Mr. Gluten free. We got you a cider. [5:30] JD: All right. [5:30] Chad: Chad and I spent probably 10 minutes in the liquor store trying to find a gluten free beer. We failed. We will be drinking dog fish head 60 minute IPA. Brandon will throw the graphic up on the screen, give us one or two examples of a gluten free beer for our audience, because Chat and I failed miserably. [5:53] JD: So probably the best gluten free beer is the Stone Delicious ipa. That's number one. There's a place up in Seattle, Ghostfish Brewery. They make a great gluten free ipa. And then there's this Canadian company called Glutenberg. I saw that, that makes some gluten free beers. [6:21] Chad: Those are probably hard. [6:22] JD: Congrats. [6:22] Mark: Congrats. [6:25] Chad: Here we go. Congrats on your win. [6:27] JD: Thank you. [6:29] Mark: That's like winning the MVP of, like, a sport, right? [6:32] JD: It is, yeah. And so I brought my. I brought my hoop, my basketball shoes. Where's your trophy? For the. For the trophy? Yeah. My trophy's packed up. [6:43] Speaker E: I have knowledge for one second. [6:45] Chad: Tapo. [6:46] Speaker E: Right? Participant outcomes. [6:48] Chad: Yeah. [6:48] JD: I love that. [6:49] Speaker E: That's what they're grading, you guys on all the different things we go to. It's how many assets did you accrue and how big's your book? [6:55] Chad: I don't know. [6:56] Speaker E: This is about actually moving the needle and making an impact, and that's awesome. [7:00] Chad: I have some bad news for you, Alex. We're gonna do a worthy episode. Alex. Okay, let me explain this to you and explain this to our audience. I'm gonna pick a word right now. [7:10] Mark: Bottle, like tequila. [7:11] Chad: And I am going to pick that word as 401k. So if you say the word 401k. [7:17] Speaker E: Oh, that's gonna be easy, is it? [7:20] JD: Yeah. [7:20] Chad: Too easy. [7:21] JD: Yeah. [7:22] Mark: Say a different word. [7:23] Chad: All right. [7:23] Mark: That's not even a word. [7:24] Chad: That's a number. Let's go through theme of the day and we'll just go participant again. [7:33] Speaker E: Okay. [7:33] Chad: It's a tough one. [7:34] Speaker E: Okay. [7:34] Chad: You say the word, starts with a P. You must drink from this. It's gluten free. What is it? [7:40] Speaker E: It's kombucha, but it's kombucha. Wild tonic, raspberry. [7:47] Chad: So we're going to help our gut at the same time. Is that what's going on? Financial wellness. Okay. [7:52] Speaker E: This is better than drinking something heavy. [7:54] Chad: But to kick us down kind of A theme. One of the reasons why we're excited to have you on this show is our audience is financial advisors, among other industry pros, what have you. But so to get someone on the show that is an advisor, and we haven't had a lot on the show in the past, and to get someone that does it well, that's a real big advantage for us or an opportunity, I should say, to, to share some of your secrets, some of the things you do. Can you tell us quickly, like, how did you get into this business? What's the firm you're with? Go ahead, you can plug it a little bit, but I want to know more about you, why you're in it, and how you feel about it. Do you love it? Do you not? Like, tell me a bit about that. [8:38] JD: Okay, so I'll try to give you the short and sweet version. And then, Justin, you just cut me off when it's gone on too long. But so I'm with my. My firm's called AFS 401K Retirement Services. We're based right outside the Washington D.C. area. We're an independent firm focusing solely on retirement plan and financial wellness consulting for companies, organizations, their employees. [9:03] Chad: Always FA Snack. [9:04] JD: Always. AFS stands for Always Fajita Snacking. [9:07] Speaker E: Continue work in your office. [9:11] JD: So not to get like too, you know, emotional or serious, but, you know, here's how I got here. When I was growing up, my, my dad was a financial advisor, my uncle still is in Cincinnati. And it wasn't as if this is what I thought I wanted to do. I was actually more into like. [9:26] Chad: So you have zero creativity, you just want to be like your dad? [9:29] JD: No, the opposite. [9:30] Mark: Hey. Shocking. [9:32] JD: Yeah. [9:33] Mark: Hey. [9:36] JD: And so I do, I did want to be just like my dad. I was into music and I played guitar and piano. Christmas when I was 16, my dad gave me Santana, Abraxas and Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore. And he said, you gotta just like listen to these non stop for the next year. But. So my dad was a financial advisor and my mother was a psychologist. And When I was 17 years old, my dad unexpectedly passed away. [10:04] Chad: Oh, I'm sorry. [10:05] JD: And so it was a huge shock emotionally and, you know, psychologically and financially to our family. And my mom wasn't as knowledgeable about financial, personal finance, financial literacy. [10:22] Chad: Yeah. [10:23] JD: And so it opened my eyes and helped me understand how the vast majority of people feel when it comes to their everyday money decisions. Right. Is they don't know how to make the best decisions. And, and everybody wants to do a Better job, but they just don't know how, they don't know what steps to take. And so I went to college and studied economics. And like I said before, my mom was a psychologist. So she was the type of person that kind of like analyzed, you know, people at the grocery store like, oh, that person's a little bit, you know, bipolar or whatever. [10:56] Chad: I knew that's what psychologists do, you [10:57] JD: know, that sort of thing. But it was interesting because as I graduated school and I knew I wanted to go into financial services and I found my business partner who was then my boss, I quickly saw this like the confluence of money and sort of financial topics that I was really interested in and psychology because really what we're talking about is how people behave and how they think about money. The sort of the emotional and the psychological experience we have with money is the driver of how the vast majority of decisions are made. Whether it's saving in your 401k or putting money away in emergency savings or putting money away for something that you want to achieve in three or five or seven years. [11:39] Chad: Well, we talked about it earlier today. If, if you have money problems or you're not minding your finances, it's really hard to, to just enjoy day to day life. And so it can be a big impact on just your, your well being and your mental state. So you can't overlook that. Like are you in one geographic area? Are you covered? How many plans are you working with? [12:02] JD: So we've got about 75 plans. 75 plans and predominantly sort of at the, in the mid market. So anywhere from maybe 10 million up to a few hundred million dollars in assets. Most of them have about, let's say 50 to 6, 700 employees. And then. [12:21] Chad: Did you just do that on purpose? You didn't use the P word? [12:24] JD: Oh, I hate the P word. [12:26] Speaker E: Oh, we should have picked. [12:27] JD: Yeah, no, this is going to be super easy. I'll, you know, I'll take a couple drinks with you because I know one of you. [12:33] Mark: A good word for employees is getting kind of boring. Participant. Yes. [12:39] JD: So in every decision that we make in our firm, the basis, the sort of, the point of focus is the employee. Right. As we start there in this sort of bot from the bottom up, as opposed to thinking, all right, we're going to create fiduciary governance first and then based on that, fiduciary governance then as long as the framework for that allows us to deliver education to employees, we'll do it this way, you know, the way that we think about whether it's plan design or strategic planning or fiduciary oversight or investment menu architecture is starting at the employee. What is the. How do we create all the services across the spectrum that help employees improve their financial life from down there? [13:32] Justin: So without giving away any trade secrets. [13:33] Mark: So no, give them all away. [13:35] Justin: Hey, a rod doesn't get you next year. Yeah, what I mean, are there tools you're using to gauge that and you know, or to apply to specific employees? Because everyone's different. What are you guys doing? [13:46] JD: You know, the great thing is other advisors can't be me, right? Because they're, because I'm Alex and like, they can be their them, right? And so there's nothing that I do that's like this unbelievable, like secret that's going to help you grow your business more than anybody else. You've got to do what's unique to you and what aligns with your value. And so there are advisors here, there are advisors across the country that truly believe they can build better custom target date funds than anybody else. And if that's what they're passionate about, they should build a business around it, right? So for us, and for me in particular, and the people on my team and the mindset that we have, we have a tagline, right? And the tagline is we want. [14:37] Mark: It's better be good. [14:39] JD: I'll let you judge you rate on a scale of 1 to 10 after I say this. The tagline is we want you to enjoy your life. All of it. [15:00] Mark: Six. [15:01] JD: Is one the highest or is ten the highest on the scaling? [15:03] Mark: I don't really know here I thought [15:05] Chad: it was always fajita snack, always fit a snack. [15:11] JD: The point of it is, is that, you know, I feel like a lot of times in conversations it's, we want to help you save for your retirement at all other costs. And I'll give you a good real life example, right? Because in a lot of, a lot of conventional advisor education is, hey, just cut out that Starbucks every day and drink coffee at your office. You'll be able to put that extra, you know, $15 a week in your fourth 401k and be able to retire. But if you're like me and the crew at my office know that the venti americano is a requirement every morning, I enjoy that immensely. It what, it's what allow one thing that I enjoy today. And so we want to give people the tools so that they can make the best decisions to enjoy their life today, tomorrow and in retirement. And so to your question, I wanted [16:06] Chad: to ask you Is. [16:06] JD: Yeah. How do you do that? Right. [16:07] Chad: You show a committee, look, we have helped your employees. Here's the numbers, here's how we've done it. Like, do you show them tangible proof? [16:16] JD: We do. We do. And here's how. So first of all, you need to know what. What are we striving towards? Right. So one of the first things that we do with any new client relationship, and then again on an annual basis, is we have what I call the strategic planning session with the committee, and we kind of prep them in advance to the extent they want to do a little advanced prep work. But the idea is we want you to start with a clean slate and tell us if you could create the perfect retirement financial benefits, offering your employees with no restraints, with no, oh, it costs too much, or we can't do that, or our general counsel wouldn't allow that, what would it look like? What do you think your employees need? And so before and to help them with the prep work, the way we give them a little bit of institutional knowledge is we look at the demographic data of their organization. Right. We look at the metrics that you would think about that are, you know, commonly used in the industry. Participation rates, savings rates, average account balance, loans values, [17:28] Chad: readiness kind of stuff. [17:29] JD: Right. We look at all those demographic things across income, across age. But then even I would say, more importantly, we ask for employee feedback. We have employees go through this financial wellness assessment, and we ask them across about 10 or 15 questions, the most important goals, challenges, and hurdles. I mentioned that earlier, that they have when it comes to their financial life. And from there, we're using the actual quantitative demographic data with softer employee feedback on. This is what I'm struggling with, some [18:01] Chad: of the committee opinions and some of [18:03] JD: the committee opinions to say, these are the things we need to improve. [18:06] Chad: So you've mapped out your blueprint, and [18:08] JD: then we create and formalize those as goals, and then we go to work. [18:13] Chad: And as an example, I think from seeing some of your stuff, and it's something we've talked about, We've talked about a lot. We've talked about a lot on this show is the emergency fund. [18:25] JD: Yeah. [18:25] Chad: So you may go into a client, bring this up, and go through all the demographics, and it may look to you like, oh, geez, a lot of these people, what was the national stat? Someone told me they don't have 400 bucks. [18:37] JD: 500 for. [18:39] Chad: Yeah, 400, 600 and 500. [18:42] Mark: It all works. Could be all made up. [18:44] Chad: Yeah. [18:45] Speaker E: Make it up. [18:46] Chad: And you may say, we need to solve this and they say we agree. And we say, well, we pulled your employees. They agreed too. They'd love to have this. [18:53] JD: That's right. [18:53] Chad: And you will take that on as a, as a plan of attack. [18:57] JD: That's right. [18:59] Chad: And help me with that because I saw something. It was. You created a challenge. I saw this on some videos. I've been stalking you. [19:09] JD: The Wallet Watch challenge. [19:10] Chad: That's the Wallet Challenge and WWC Wallet Watch Challenge. And this is like. You send this out to all your clients, I'm guessing. [19:18] JD: Yeah. [19:19] Chad: Through email blast campaign. Try to get people to sign up. You monitor that and see who signed up. And then you maybe send them cool, helpful tips, templates. You do a video for them every week to. How did that. I don't want to guess that at all. [19:36] JD: Keep going. No, you keep guessing. [19:38] Chad: And you did it. So I've been sitting on this couch for years saying where's this kind of stuff? Who's doing this kind of stuff? [19:46] Mark: And you. [19:47] Chad: I sat. So excited. Does it, is it working? Are you enjoying. Did the clients like it? Did the participants give me some feedback on this thing? Yeah. Thanks. [20:01] JD: Now. [20:02] Mark: So no one else caught that one. [20:04] JD: So here's the thing. [20:05] Mark: Hey, Alex, [20:09] JD: I think that you've got to engage employees in the ways that are most natural and native to them. Right. So a 55 year old, and I don't mean this to be generalizing, but a 55 year old loves the idea of sitting in a lunch session and hearing about Social Security. Right. And being there and hearing me or some of the. One of the experts, one of the CFPs on our team present around how Social Security works and different claiming strategies. Perhaps there's another 55 year old or if we think stereotypically it's a 30 year old that says I'd rather see a two minute video on Alex explaining whether I should go right. Roth or traditional in my 401k contribution election. And so we're creating content for a number of different audiences, but primarily again for that employee audience or what we call the personal finance information seeker and helping them in the type of medium that is most native for them. [21:15] Chad: Did you just call employees personal finance information seekers? [21:19] Speaker E: Yes, I think we should. [21:20] JD: I don't know how I feel about that employee. [21:23] Speaker E: I, I'm, I would like to nominate that because he clearly does not say. [21:27] Mark: Wait, hold on. You want to file an amendment? [21:29] Speaker E: I'd like to file an amendment. [21:31] Mark: First time on the show. [21:32] Chad: Okay. [21:33] Mark: We need a four vote approval. [21:34] Chad: Let me finish. [21:35] Mark: Approval. Yeah. Approved approval. [21:37] Speaker E: It's both. Now Keyword. [21:38] Mark: And you don't count Approval. Yeah, approval, your words. [21:42] JD: All right, participant, just to check, is this. This is a. This is a perspective amendment, right? We're not going to be able to do this retroactively. [21:51] Speaker E: No, not retroactively. [21:52] JD: We're not going to go back. [21:53] Speaker E: We should. [21:55] Chad: Good. [21:55] Speaker E: 4. [21:55] Chad: Humor. Okay, so I get you. You're saying I'm going to create content education in a variety of forms. [22:03] JD: In a variety of forms. [22:04] Chad: So it. I'll use multiple lures so it fits for everybody. So they. They get it. And that's true of you. Let's go there, because I want to bring that up. I see you on Twitter. I see you on Instagram. I see the YouTube videos. I see stuff on your website. I see something called like Benefits Nav. [22:23] JD: Yep. [22:24] Chad: So is that a place where someone can go to gain information and learn? What is that? [22:29] JD: Yeah, we have. We built these two portals, Benefits Nav and Money Nav. [22:34] Chad: By the way, I'm not just trying to promote your own stuff. [22:37] JD: Yeah, no, keep it going. [22:38] Chad: These people out there to go, oh, I could do something like that. Right. So go on. [22:42] JD: So. So Money Nav is the hub to how we're delivering financial wellness. So I think a lot of advisors struggle with. I go out and I deliver because there's a ton of advisors here that are. That are awesome in terms of helping people. You heard a guy this morning, George Frazier, talk about helping people understand, you know, saving a penny out of, you know, a penny on the dollar would get you towards retro time. [23:05] Chad: Rbg, dude. [23:06] JD: Right? Yeah, exactly. And, and so, but the, the, the. The challenge is you go out and you deliver this presentation, regardless of the topic. Let's say we're talking about, you know, the importance of emergency savings and debt management. And you deliver a cool presentation. Maybe you have some interactive videos, maybe you have some handouts, and then you go back to your office and you move on to the next client. And then the HR team or the benefits team is. Is like, hey, can we get access to the. That. Can you. I get. I need to send it out to employees or, you know, you give it to them and they don't actually hit the email. So we created Money Nav of this hub where all that content lives. And so we're creating automated workflow so that if I go out and deliver a presentation on. We have one called Dollars and Cents. And it's really about helping people understand cash flow because people hate the. People hate the idea of budgeting. Budgeting is like, that should be next Episode budgeting is such a dirty word. [23:58] Justin: Right? [23:58] Mark: Don't try to give us ideas. [23:59] JD: You have a lot of dirty words. Yeah, I really hate any like the cliche participants. Yeah, any of the, like any of the cliche things. I'm not a big fan, so that [24:12] Chad: is what I thought it was. Yeah, it's a hub. [24:15] JD: And so, and so the thing is so, so people can use this hub and, and we're pushing out content. And so if in, if a worker see how I did that, now you [24:26] Mark: just sound like it. [24:27] Justin: I like to file another nice guy. [24:30] JD: If somebody, if somebody says, hey, we [24:32] Mark: can make this happen. [24:33] JD: I like these emails. They subscribe to the community and then we're going to send them an email and they can either through completing the assessment or by their own election, we can identify, or they can identify which topics are most relevant to them and then we'll push content on those topics. [24:51] Chad: It's a reoccurring theme I keep hearing, not just from you. [24:54] JD: Right. [24:54] Chad: People is customizing this content, these ideas, content these days. Okay, so that's cool. [25:01] JD: And so I just want to go back. So the thing with the wallet watch is we said, you know, there's like all of this great both anecdotal and quantitative data around health, wellness around how creating steps, challenges and you know, doing your whatever, you know, visiting your primary care physician for like a healthy checkup, all those sort of things help people improve their own health, their personal health. And so why don't we take the experience there and turn the same thing into somebody's financial life for sure now it's still like for whatever reason, it's still a little somewhere part of it's like still a little bit taboo. Right? Like you could do this steps challenge and like, hey, guess what? Alex won the steps challenge. He lost 30 pounds. And I get up on stage and people love it. But if we do it like with finances, they're like, Alex won. He had $30,000 in debt and he has zero. It's still like a little cringing. [25:56] Chad: You post it on Facebook and everyone supports you and you do the weight loss thing or whatever. My wife and my 14 year old son are on like a 30 day AB core challenge where they're doing these workouts. It's common in fitness and exercise. And I agree, as soon as we get into finance, it's like, it's weird. [26:14] Speaker E: People don't like to talk about. [26:17] Mark: What I was going to say was we've had this conversation a number of times and I'm not going to call you out, but I am at the same time, because I don't want people to believe that you're up here saying these things. Because you go into a meeting and you tell your clients, this is what I'm going to do. I want to know how are you showing results? How are you showing that you've actually put this into action and it's getting engagement. That was a common word in our last episode, like your accountability. How are you proving this? That you obviously, you were up on stage receiving an award. I'm not saying that you're not doing this. You obviously are. But what I'm trying to say is give me more. How are you doing this and how are you showing that it's actually working? Because I believe all of it. I believe it, but I, I don't. I want people to know it's possible. [27:13] Chad: I. [27:13] JD: Sorry, go ahead. [27:14] Speaker E: I think people are what, what you're getting at. And you and I have had this conversation. I just question it and not doing it. Your competitors are preaching and not doing. [27:24] JD: So I believe you've got to meet with the people. Right? Is that you have to be willing to meet one on one with people. The vast majority of the employees. Because I got to say it, the vast majority of the employees, it's a double. Make it a double. Across the country will never have their own personal financial advisor, but they need help, they need financial guidance, they need financial advice. [27:55] Mark: Fair enough. [27:56] JD: I'm interrupting. [27:58] Chad: You say that, but at the same time, I was so proud of you because of the, the challenge and the video and the email, like that's a workaround to that. Now you're able to help multiple people without sitting down with them one on one. And now you're flipping back. [28:13] JD: You got to do both. You got to do both. So think, I think about it in this pyramid is that there's some percentage. I don't know what that percentage is. And we could kind of just, you know, I. So let's, let's say it's 60,000. Let's say it's 40% of the population. 40% of, of the employees that we serve tripled up 40% of the employees that we serve. Across our client relationships, we can engage and help drive them towards making wise financial decisions through group sessions, web based sessions, videos, infographics, the Wallet Watch Challenge. We have another one called the Living Debt Free Program and we can get 40% there. All right. [29:00] Chad: And this isn't theory. These are all things that he's doing right now. [29:04] Mark: I never said he and then there's [29:06] JD: another group, maybe that's 20, 30%. If I think about it, it's probably closer to 30% in terms of like the number of people we serve that we meet with one on one in a year. Right. So 30% were there. And then, and then the final 30% are not going to engage because they, they're the higher income earners, they're the executives, they have their own financial professional or they're the engineers and architects who do it themselves, which we serve some of those organizations too. And they're great, but that's how I think about it. Right. And so a lot of times the question comes up, well, how do you, you know, how do you actually do that? How do you deliver that? How do you scale it? It's not profitable. It's like. And so part of my answer is, you know, run a business like, like an Amazon would and double down on resources and double down on human capital because it's what people demand and outwork your peers and competitors by doing more and being willing to make less profit in the short term to find ways to create greater efficiency and scalability over the medium and long term. [30:19] Mark: I'm really excited by that because part of me always, when we have these conversations, always thinks that the reason we, why our audience isn't taking action is because there's this mythical. I have to find this magic wand to wave in order to do something. And you're proving the theory of, you just outwork the competition. You believe in what you believe in and you get in there and you do this and you just go for it. So tell the camera, tell the audience that if you just believed it, go out and do it. You'll get onto a, you'll go onto a podium, you'll give it a horrible acceptance speech to four guys who drink [31:00] Chad: beer and make Aaron feel like crap. And it's freaking possible. [31:04] Mark: It's not rocket science. [31:06] JD: 12, I think 11th or 12, did they name that? We should be. The thing is, I'm totally jigs. He's gonna now he's gonna, his business is going to totally eclipse mine. [31:20] Mark: Make him a participation award. [31:23] Chad: He's, he's watching right now at the gym on a bike. [31:28] Speaker E: Let me ask a question while he's working out. You had to have failed at some point with this. Can you give us a tribulation? Something that you went through that you realized, dang, I was, I was wrong with this. [31:39] Mark: Sure. [31:39] JD: I mean, you with the first one, it's kind of, look, I'm in A very fortunate position. This is a good day for me. I'm having a few of these kombucha drinks and being recognized among, you know, a great sort of peer group. But when I first started, literally the first three years that I was in the industry was just a total grind. I mean, I was working 70, 80 hour weeks trying to, you know, develop infrastructure. I mean, there are only a handful of clients to serve. That was the easy part. But we're developing exactly what we wanted to deliver to these organizations so that we could create the best retirement plans possible. And you know, for the first three years, I would banging my head on the wall wondering like, why I would go into these prospective client meetings or sales presentations and they'd go with somebody else and they'd say, oh, this person's going to do it for free. Or you know, like it was the world of like, you know, undisclosed compensation and commission based, and we were fee based, we were fiduciary and it was a disadvantage. And literally, I mean, for the first three years, I mean, there's a point probably three years in where I was going to bed one night and I was like, you know, just working like crazy and barely making any money. And I had buddies I went to college with who were accountants and recruiters and whatever else, and they're, you know, making three times as much money as me. And I was like, what am I going to do when this thing doesn't work out right? And then finally we had one client go out on a limb and want to hire us, and then another one and another one and it just started to build and then we were able to produce and deliver. And part of it's just like the drive and the discipline and the determination and, and so, and it sounds easy and it sounds like, oh, that's what everybody says. But you know, I always, and I'm getting to the full scope of your question, but you know, I always find it interesting when people are like, oh, I don't really prospect anymore. All I do is accept referrals. And I think anybody who really wants to grow, they're either like, they're saying that because they think it's the right thing to say, or they're, they're, they're prospecting for referrals. Right? You're still marketing and branding yourself. And we want to grow in a smart way. We want to work with the right types of organizations. But my experience in the early days where I think a lot of people probably would have gotten out of the business because, you know, Three plus years and you weren't achieving any type of success. You're failing consistently for three years. And when we, when we moved into this, what I'll call advice focus, focusing on the end user, helping them improve their financial life. Sure. The first year we did the Wallet Watch Challenge, we probably had 4, 30 people complete it. Right. Right now we work with about 18,000 folks in the organizations we serve. And in the first year we probably had 30 complete the wallet watch challenge. And the second year we had 85. And so in everything, I think a lot of people would say it's not worth the time or the energy. [34:43] Mark: We started out with two views, now we have like 10. [34:47] Chad: They could say that, they could say, well, that's not worth it. But you're saying, well, I'm just going to keep, keep my head down and keep working on it because I feel like it's the right thing. [34:54] JD: And I think part of it, you know, to your point, is that a lot of, there are a lot of advisors who say I'm not, I'm not willing or I don't, I don't think there's ROI in taking whatever the amount is, you know, of revenue off the, the top or off the bottom, if you, if you will, of my comp. And reinvesting that back into marketing, social, you know, hands on. Because it takes, it takes, it takes time and resources and human capital and, you know, like, we, I've got an awesome team. Like to say that, you know, we can do all this stuff. It's because I've got this, this crew, this team that all believe in the mission. Right. And we're all driving towards that mission of helping people improve today, tomorrow, in the long term future. [35:42] Chad: All right, I want to shift gears. I think that is super valuable. [35:46] JD: Do you have another one of those in the. [35:49] Chad: We do. [35:49] Speaker E: Right behind you in the fridge. [35:51] Chad: In the fridge. I want to shift gears and I want to talk a little bit about that social. [35:58] JD: Okay. [36:01] Chad: I like what you just said. And my takeaway from that is it's, it's not all about efficiencies and tech and challenges and email campaigns. That's part of it. But it is also about rolling up your sleeves, getting along. [36:16] Mark: By the way, honestly, I thought when we were sitting down for this, I was gonna be, I thought you were gonna come here and just be like you were just blowing up the system. [36:25] Chad: Right. [36:25] Mark: And it's almost refreshing to hear that you're like, no, it's not about that. Like, yeah, you're a different breed because you're maybe going down a different route, wearing Jordans and all, but it's not this crazy, gnarly. You got to do this. So I. I'm intrigued. [36:42] Chad: This is a scary landscape to go into this social. I don't think it should be, but it seems to be scary for a lot of people in the sense that I think a lot of advisors, a lot of financial services looks at social media. Definitely has in the past, and currently I still think a lot of them do. I was like, oh, it's just a silly thing like Twitter and LinkedIn and all that kind of stuff. Facebook and I see it differently. And when I see an advisor like you utilizing it, I feel like that you get it. And I want our audience, if they haven't picked up on it yet, to start to get it like this. These mediums are such a great way to huge communicate, network, meet people, and that I don't. So deliver. [37:28] Speaker E: Don't even go away from that. Don't look at process and deliver. [37:31] Chad: You are delivering participants with social clients. My prospects. My prospects are advisors through LinkedIn, which to me is the social media platform for advisors. [37:43] JD: Oh, yeah. [37:44] Chad: I connect every day. [37:47] Mark: Jd, what's your follower count at? [37:50] Chad: I connect every. Oh, he's making fun of me. [37:53] Speaker E: No, I think because he wants to know what Alex is. [37:56] Chad: It's. It's. I don't know, pushing 9,000. [37:59] JD: What are you on Twitter? [38:00] Chad: LinkedIn? [38:01] JD: LinkedIn? Oh, I have no idea. [38:04] Mark: What do you want Twitter? Like, I know. [38:06] JD: Not that many. [38:07] Chad: My point is that it works really, really well for me to connect to my prospects. Okay. And start relationships. It's literally like a relationship wonderland of like, oh, I like someone's stuff. I start talking with them, before you know it, two years later, I'm good buddies with the person, I'm doing business with them. Like, it's a great thing. Is that not how you view it as an advisor for current day and the future for clients? Are you not going to get clients from social media? [38:35] JD: Definitely you will. There are two parts, right? I mean, part of it is the. That when you have that initial introduction, they're naturally going to say, okay, does Alex have a website? What does that website look like? Is he on Facebook? Is he on LinkedIn? Is he on Twitter? Right. So potential clients will go there and look for you. And certainly current clients are going to consume information and consume the ideas or thought leadership that we deliver on there. And if they're not getting it from me, they're getting it from another advisor. Right? So I Want to make sure they're hearing it from me, if I'm if. And again, I think about this in a couple of audiences. So when we deliver content on social, we have two audiences. One is the benefits executive, which is, you know, HR C suite, Benefits Managers Retirement Committee. Right. So, oh, the Department of Labor is going to redraft the fiduciary rule. I want to push that stuff out for that community. Right. And then the rest are the, the folks that we serve within the organizations and everybody else across the country who wants information about personal finance, the personal finance information seeker seekers. And so we're delivering content to them. [40:02] Chad: I'm warming up to it. Yeah. [40:03] JD: So. But it's, it's a place. And so I think the way that I want to approach it is sending out, whether it's a blog post or a picture or, you know, some sort of little piece, it being something that really adds value to people and is genuine to what I believe and feel. I think, I think the, the trap that a lot of advisors, a lot of my peers fall under is that they are using like this sort of canned content from their back office or from other places and they're like, oh, I got to get this stuff out. Just because, you know, it's like, let [40:42] Chad: me unwrap that with you and I'll give you my perspective on you. And you may already, like, are aware of this, I'm sure you are. But when it's not just about valuable content, content like DoL regs changing, that stuff's great and valuable. But I would imagine that your current clients even, and, or your prospective ones, when they see you at an event like this, when they see you at a client meeting, when they see the, just the simple fact that you're posting this stuff on social. My takeaway is this guy lives, breathes and sleeps this stuff. He likes it. He's integrating it into his life. He's having fun with it. So even though, like, the more you're [41:26] Mark: different than most, even the more cool, [41:28] Chad: edgy stuff to me still reeks of, wow, this guy's all in on this 401k stuff. And that's gotta be positive for a client. So not only are you giving them education, you're actually staying front of mind with them and planning a seed in their head that, oh, our guy is on top of this. And I agree with you. I think the advisors that dabble in it and worse put out just kind of prefab content that's got nothing to do with them. I don't get that emotion from them. I get the opposite, to be honest with you. And so I think they need to understand that. That it's about. Yeah, I've said it. You know, getting them their authentic self out there, showing the value they have, [42:11] Speaker E: going to use authenticity. You talked earlier about making sure that they know the type of person that you are, that you're not different from work to personal life. That's just it. I feel like when I watch you on social media, I get a pretty darn good feeling for who you are as an individual and that I can trust you and I can value your [42:26] JD: content because of it. [42:27] Chad: I'll give the audience at home a tip. I can't always come up with my own content. It's a lot of work. But I'm always reading stuff in my industry. And when I see something I like a video, an article, what have you. And I vetted it out, and I go, this is good. Then this has some nuggets in it. I'm gonna put it back out there, but I'm gonna throw a little bit of my. My flair on it, and I'm gonna write at the top. Hey, I thought this was super freaking cool. I like the way this guy writes this. Don't forget to check out the end, because he says this and I'll send that. And to me, I'm putting my personal flair on it, but giving them something valuable. We need to see more of that from your competitors. Otherwise you're just going to keep running away with all these awards. [43:09] Mark: We don't want to see more of that. I mean, like, we want him to just keep rocking like, no, don't do this, guys. You're fine. [43:14] Chad: There's another guy. [43:16] Speaker E: This man is trying to better the world. [43:17] Chad: Yeah, there's another guy that does a decent job of this. [43:19] Mark: Okay, wait, hold on. No, don't talk about that yet. Can you plug your band real quick? [43:25] JD: My band? Your medallion. Yeah, so I post about them, you know, on. On Twitter and Facebook as well. So it's a, like, alternative garage rock. [43:39] Chad: Slash. [43:40] Mark: Ice Cube, like, yeah, we'll. [43:41] JD: We'll throw in a little, you know, Ice Cube. [43:44] Chad: You do know that our editor has now found some great shots. He's linked to SoundCloud or YouTube. [43:59] Mark: Why is the deer like the animal deer? [44:02] JD: So I. The band started off, it was me and a bunch of my buddies. I've played guitar since I was a little kid. In fact, the guitar I play, the primary One is this 1994 Fender Stratocaster. It's a Limited edition. Has this green headstock. My mom got it for me from Christmas and I still have it today and I still play it all the time. And anyway, she's my biggest fan. You'll have a new fan for the show now because my mom's gonna like this thing. [44:31] Chad: What's your mom's name? [44:32] JD: Mary Beth. [44:32] Chad: Mary Beth. Mary Beth, we love you. [44:35] JD: So anyway, so we. [44:37] Chad: Such a handsome boy [44:40] Mark: raised him right. [44:41] JD: We've been playing, you know. So my buddies and I would get together a little bit in college and then when we graduated, we would all. We lived in different places. I got some friends in Pittsburgh and kind of around like the mid Atlantic area. And we would go like get a cabin and bring our instruments and just like play music. Is that called jam? We would just jam. Not shredding. Not as much shredding, but jamming. And so the one guy. The one guy. And I don't want to offend you with this, but the one guy is kind of into hunting. And so this one time he brought all this venison and he made these little venison medallions and the whole vegan. The whole sort of day centered around jamming, drinking and venison medallions. [45:20] Chad: Killing animals and. [45:21] JD: Yeah. And so we became. We became deer. Why did I. [45:24] Speaker E: Wonderful [45:27] JD: deer medallion. Yeah. And that's how we got the name. [45:31] Chad: Very good. [45:32] Mark: So JD Officially does not like. [45:34] JD: Yeah. [45:35] Chad: There is another guy in the business we've talked about. Bottom of it. Hey. [45:39] JD: A. Ron, right. [45:40] Chad: He's got a pretty good social game. He's working on his stuff. So I thought we'd have a little fun. And I thought I invented this, this Aaron versus Alex kind of competition. I literally did. And now I'm learning. [45:52] Mark: Zuckerberg. Now I'm learning. [45:53] Chad: No, it already existed. You guys already have a video out on Twitter where you're doing this. So I apologize. I'm jumping on your act. But I thought the retire Alex could have some fun. Comparing Aaron to Alex. [46:07] Mark: So you did not say we were doing this. [46:09] Speaker E: Let's start. Up top. Hey. [46:14] JD: Hey. [46:15] Speaker E: It's got a jawline. [46:15] JD: Yeah. [46:17] Speaker E: You acknowledge. [46:17] JD: Yes. Oh, yeah. [46:18] Speaker E: He's got a job. [46:19] Chad: So this is a tough one. Hot, hottest, hotter. Most handsome, hotter. Who's the hotter? [46:25] Mark: Wait, we gotta. [46:26] Speaker E: Are you breaking it down to like jawline versus tire? [46:29] Chad: Because. [46:29] Speaker E: Because there's nothing. [46:30] Chad: No, no, no. We're not going fast. You're stealing from. [46:32] Mark: Nothing's touching those books. I'm going off of Participant Outcomes. It's Alex. [46:40] Chad: So handsome. My vote is going for Alex. [46:44] Justin: I'd swipe right on both of them. [46:45] Chad: You swipe right on both. I'll leave you guys. You're fine. [46:50] Speaker E: I feel like that just answered every question. [46:54] Chad: We already know who wins the Tapo award. That goes to you. I'm imagining some. You're building up your points right now on the screen. [47:02] JD: He's gonna do editing. [47:03] Speaker E: The beer bottle is filling up for Alex right now. [47:06] Chad: Fashion. Fashion. Justin Mark, folks. [47:10] Mark: He's got Jordan [47:13] Chad: if nothing else. [47:14] JD: He can win every other one. [47:15] Justin: Press. But I mean. [47:17] Chad: Gotta go. Gotta go. You're Alex iii. [47:21] JD: That's right. [47:22] Justin: There's a more impressive. [47:23] Chad: Your new son's gonna be the fourth. [47:24] JD: Is the fourth. [47:25] Chad: I mean, that's impressive. [47:27] JD: Yeah. [47:27] Chad: That might be worth another little credit. Five months. Congratulations on that. [47:32] JD: Five months old. Yeah. [47:33] Chad: That's awesome. [47:33] JD: He goes by George, which is my middle name. Alexander George Astley iii. And he's the fourth. [47:41] Chad: Wow. I wish I had something like that on the end of my name. [47:44] Speaker E: I like agent. [47:45] JD: Yeah. [47:46] Chad: James. [47:46] Speaker E: Right? [47:47] Chad: James Douglas Carlson iii. This is. [47:51] Speaker E: You'd be. Just gave up his full name. [47:54] Mark: JD3 what? [47:55] Speaker E: James Douglas. [47:56] Chad: I don't do that often. So. Yeah, I don't. I don't really have any other comparison. So I'm just gonna go with. Alex is the winner versus Aaron. [48:05] JD: Two big awards. [48:07] Speaker E: I know this one is way bigger. [48:09] Mark: Your trophy for that is nothing. [48:13] JD: I'm not gonna lie. [48:13] Justin: Once again, had your trophy so you could just slam it on the table. [48:17] Chad: I imagine Aaron Potichin watching this show earbuds in on the stationary bike, super pissed off, firing up beads of sweat going down. I think he's gonna have a big year in 2019. [48:31] Justin: I think he's gonna talk. [48:34] JD: You don't want to like stoke the fire of your, you know, biggest peers. Like we're doing. I'm doing right now. [48:39] Chad: I know where Aaron beats you. We are going to go to his presentation tomorrow and we're going to try to heckle him because he asked us to. [48:48] JD: He is. [48:48] Chad: But we. We've a group of people that sit around drinking beer, talking about 401k plans. How damaging that would be to your brand. I don't know how you would survive in business. [49:00] JD: Horrible. [49:03] Chad: Compare that to. [49:04] JD: Wow. [49:07] Chad: Compare that to. He is very scary. And I am very concerned about heckling him in front of a live audience. I'm afraid he's going to take me down. [49:14] JD: He's got a quick. Little quick wit, huh? [49:16] Chad: Yes. [49:16] Speaker E: Very scared. [49:17] JD: J.D. a little bit. [49:19] Chad: Anything you'd like to say to close out anything you talk about as an advisor. [49:25] JD: My mission is helping people do the things that I wish, you know, my family, my mom in particular had when. When she was in her, you know, 30s and things like that. And so that's what I think about every single day. And so there's a lot of great people doing that sort of stuff. [49:44] Chad: And you can't maybe all win awards like this guy, but you can be pretty good. Get it done right. [49:49] Mark: We're never gonna win an award. [49:50] JD: What do you mean? [49:51] Chad: Come on. We're thinking about, you know, how you get your award or plaques. Yeah, we're thinking about making a retireholics plaque for advisors to send to their office. [50:04] JD: Yeah, I'll order that thing up right now. [50:08] Chad: It's like a crushed gold beer can [50:10] Mark: on the, you know, old maple. [50:12] Chad: Whatever. [50:12] JD: Yeah, I think he should be the [50:14] Justin: first one to receive that. [50:15] Chad: Sure. For sure. [50:16] JD: Hey, thank you guys so much. [50:17] Chad: Thanks for being on. [50:18] JD: I love hanging out with you. [50:19] Chad: We are the retireaholics with a guest. We're changing the retirement plan industry one gluten free beer at a time. Thanks for tuning in. See ya. From Vegas.