Empower's Rollover Tactics & Fiduciary Responsibility

[0:11] JD: You're going to have a really, really bad time, sir. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Retireholics. This is episode number 250, Chadwick. [0:33] Chad: Is it really? [0:34] JD: I don't know. [0:34] Chad: Somewhere in there it was believable. [0:37] JD: We stopped. You had me, like, we stopped counting at, like, episode 34. But yeah, we're definitely right around 250, something like that. My name is JD. I'm joined by Nerdy Chad. Everybody's favorite retireholic guy will be here shortly. He's in transit and silent. J. Jessic McNeil, the 1991 taco eating champion of the ASPA Conference, is at the Delmar Racetrack in San Diego with my son, our internal sales consultant, and Devin Wendell, our SoCal sales rep. There they are. [1:21] Chad: Oh, there they are. [1:23] JD: I believe that's Amanda Iverson with them. And CPA dude. What's CPA dude? [1:31] Chad: Brad Bartels. [1:32] JD: BB Yeah, Brian Bartels. So look at my son's outfit. What the hey. [1:38] Chad: Justin said he had four outfits that he changed throughout the day. So I want to know what the other outfits were like. [1:46] JD: We'll see. Amanda's popping it off. Amanda's popping it off. Today's episode is sponsored by the new Retireholics target date fund. It's coming out soon. It's 1/3. 1/3, 1/3 asset allocation. So it's really simple, really easy to understand. It's 1/3 in private equity, 1/3 in crypto, and 1/3 in Robey's drunk stock picks. Be aware that glide path is very aggressive. When I say very aggressive, I mean the path is flat. Basically. It will remain in that onethird breakdown to and through retirement. Because the tagline of the fund is like, you know, go big or go home. So check it out. It should be on the shelves soon. No, no rebalancing. Ah, no, no, no, Aqua. That's a great idea. We should rebalance. We'll rebalance. [2:44] Chad: Quarterly analyst said rebalance. [2:47] JD: So totally. We'll do that. We'll do that, we'll do that. Gonna sing a song today. So to do that, there's a quite a few things I need to do here. My mic to this setting. I need to make sure that my mic wire did not come loose as I did that. And I'm still on the yeti mic. I am. I go to original sound up in the top and yeah, here we go. Got a little song for everybody. It's a John Cougar Melon camp song. So let's take it away. Little Diddy. About Nevin And Fred, two ERISA attorneys always using their heads. Freddy's gonna be a podcast star. Nev's retirement is very subpar. [4:15] Chad: This might be your best one yet, jd. [4:18] Mark: Okay. [4:21] JD: Debating whether peps are the bee's knees, but these two boomers know they have way too high fees. Freddie says. Hey, Nev, your thoughts on private equity could be too risky. Let's see what Schlichter believes. Oh yeah, new cases will spawn alternative investments. Might be the next con pe. What could go wrong? Maybe your plan will get sued by the bogeyman. Gotta rhyming, you know. And there we go. It's the Nevin and Fred. Jd, was that all right? Okay, good. [5:11] Chad: We need to cut that one. And we need to put it out on social immediately because that. Yep, solid nine from Kush there. I am in agreement. [5:19] JD: That's good. If Kush is saying right. And I just lost my mic. Hang on. Sorry. Good. Because Wendy, I don't know if you know, but some. Sometimes those can go really bad. [5:33] Chad: Often, often. By the way, jd, oh, Marky's coming in. But you owe four drinks now. Okay, I'm adding them up since we didn't have a bell ringer. [5:48] Mark: Did I. Did I make it in time start yet? Perfect. [5:52] JD: Here he is, everybody. Everybody's favorite retire holic guy. Tell us about your day, Robey. Where are you coming from? [6:00] Mark: I'm coming from Carmel Valley. Drinking some wine, hanging out, just relaxing. [6:07] Chad: Did you stay the night there last night? [6:09] Mark: No, I drove home from Monterey yesterday and drove back this morning. Yeah, it's been a lot of windshield time, but I pregame with some really nice sparkling Brute and some rose and I was just gonna swash it down with a really fancy Modelo. Hi Wendy, how are you? [6:30] JD: I'm good, Robi. Fun fact, my Brandon and I's dogs names as kids were Brute and Chablis. Okay, let's intro our guest. She's a mother of three, sent two of them off to college yesterday or tomorrow. She's sending two of them off to college tomorrow and and her third child, her daughter's already off and gone, so she's a soon to be empty nester. She's a Cleveland Browns fan who loves 40 year old quarterbacks. Apparently he is the best. [7:07] Mark: He is. [7:08] JD: Actually loves banging out emails while listening to Christopher Cross, men at work and Ozzy Osbourne. Rest in peace to Ozzy. She on Tik Tok and Insta putting out 401k content under the banner 401ks rock, which I think she has trademarked. She's retirement plan advisor. And more importantly, she's obsessed with 401k plans, so she's in the right spot. Welcome to the show. Wendy Eldridge. Thanks for being here. [7:36] Wendy Eldridge: Thank you for having me. [7:38] Chad: Jd. [7:39] JD: Yes. [7:40] Chad: You're in her game tonight. You even took over Justin's role of introing our guests and you did it better than him. [7:47] JD: Well, I asked. I asked Mark to do it and he's. He wrote me back. Nah, I know I did. [7:54] Mark: I said I'm gonna be late. [7:56] Chad: I can't do that. [7:57] JD: R. Let's play some headlines. [8:00] Wendy Eldridge: Can I. Can I quick respond to Mike's question in the chat? [8:04] Mark: Sure. [8:04] JD: You're our guest. Do whatever the you want. [8:06] Wendy Eldridge: Justin Bieber. Heart. Love him. Thank you. [8:10] JD: Yes, Mark. Mark's having the same problem. [8:14] Mark: I don't know what's going on. [8:15] JD: That background problem. [8:17] Mark: I sent you an image. Mark, can you change your virtual background to that? Yep. [8:22] JD: I'm sick on my YETI because it keeps fucking up. This is just. This is the way it's supposed to go, you know, it's cool, Wendy, when your show is irreverent and drunk, when things go wrong, it's just part of the fun. You know [8:37] Chad: all about the content. Bab. [8:50] JD: I'm just bailing on my mic. Okay, headlines, headlines. We've got one. Oz. Our buddy Brian Brashaw over at ozaic, their company has partnered with Now Blaze Credit Union. Might seem like a boring topic, but I want to take this somewhere. I bank with Chase. Well, actually I have several banks because I want to just keep 250k in each bank. So I've spread it out because I kind of got shocked by the whole Silicon Valley bank thing. So I spread my money around. But I am obviously a private banking client with Chase because of my net worth. And they were trying to sell me a 401k the other day. They walked me through like a web demo and all of a sudden the dude started slinging me 401k plans, which I believe is the Chase 401k plan. It's called Everyday 401k. And they use Aaron Shum over at Vestwell to do some of the work. [9:57] Chad: I didn't know that. [9:58] JD: Yeah, but it was kind of a funny moment for me. But then it brought me back to the past when I was selling, which was a long time ago. Wendy, when's the last time JD ever sold a retirement plan? It's been a long time. But, um. But I remember thinking like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go walk into these Little regional banks and talk to the financial advisors that work in these banks and get them to like partner with me as a third party administrator. I think I felt flat on my face like I don't think any of that shit ever really worked. But, but that's. So that's where my brain's going right now. Is OZAIC with, with this credit union is, is going to help those advisors in those retail locations to, to sell 401k plans, which, hey, maybe that works. So my question to you all, and we'll start with Wendy, is do you think an advisor in a bank could kill it in terms of sales? I mean, they've got the Rolodex, right? They've got all the data to look at for all the clients, how much money they got in their banks, whether they run a business, whether they don't you think that might be a pretty good spot to shoot some fish in a barrel? No. [11:05] Wendy Eldridge: Well, kudos to Jose for trying this. I mean, I think again, kudos to them for doing this. The problem is, is that the banks are going to sell a product and so it's a horrible, horrible idea for the end user. They're going to sell a bad product. They're not going to be around, they're not going to service it. I'm all for this. If we go back to you have to be a fiduciary that everybody who's going to be selling 401 plans has to be a fiduciary. I'm all in. But if that doesn't happen, this is a disaster. [11:35] JD: Now I think what part of what you said makes perfect sense with my Chase situation? Because Chase was trying to sling their own product, right? But a lot of these regional banks, and I would imagine this Blaze one is similar to this, they don't really have their own product. If they're an OSAIC advisor, they may have a choice of products. But then to your second point, they're probably pretty clueless when it comes to 401k plans. And so all those other points you made are totally valid, but I think we should make that distinction. My guess is that at Blaze as Mosaic Advisors, they will have a choice of different products to choose from. Chad, do we call on regional banks? Do your, does your sales team look. No. Come on. [12:18] Chad: Well, we're going to Chase the actual opportunity and truthfully, there's not much business being done in those regional banks. But let's be honest with one another, especially at Chase, because I've banked there for 25 years. Those in office advisors, those in bank advisors, they turn over so freaking fast they're gone and off somewhere else. They're just, they are slinging the next product that they need to, to continue to keep status. And then I don't, I don't know if they leave the business or go independent or what they do but they are never in the bank channel anymore. So I would be truly fearful. I did sit down with a Chase bank advisor JD years ago and he did same pitched me on their every day now their everyday was ran by JP Morgan's micro market platform at that point which I think JP Morgan is now using Vestwell as the tech and that's how that got connected. But he pitched me and I sat him down. I said dude, if you want to do this you're pitching the wrong person first off. But if you want to do this you need to position yourself as an independent. You're a securities licensed advisor. You don't have to sell the in house product. If you want to be a 401k person inside the bank then get comfortable with other products and position yourself to Wendy's point as an independent fiduciary advisor. And if they do that, kudos to them. I'd be okay with it. They do have low hanging fruit and they're gonna sell some plans. It's gonna be nasty to Nate. [13:48] JD: Nate Moody says bunch of 50,000 and three participant plans. But I mean big successful business owner have bank accounts, you know and they and big businesses run through, through banks. [14:00] Chad: And so what is Wells Fargo done? What is, I mean that's a banking channel that created an advisor chassis [14:08] JD: the [14:08] Mark: connection between like bank of America and Merrill. Right where they have business bankers that are attached to can be one or a group or a collection of advisors. And that business banker is a referral source versus the actual advisor. I think in that dynamic where the business banker can vet out the client and can pass it along to the specialist, I'm okay with that. And I think advisors should, should partner with business bankers to get those opportunities for sure. [14:42] JD: Like if they're not, that might be a tougher call. But I will tell you this, like people trust their banks. I feel like and so like to do a mortgage with your bank is a very common thing. Like oh this is my bank. They, they hold my money like I'm going to do my mortgage with them. And so I just think that it's possible that there's a lot of business owners out there that would be lured into someone at their bank saying hey, let us help you with your 401k plan. But 100% I say that. And I also realize that I've never really seen that happen or work. And it doesn't seem to work at any scale. Let's go to the juicy one. Let's go to the neck, the big headline, which is the juicy one. It's the one I did. The late ad, Brandon. It's from napa.net. i will drink.org I don't have my buttons ready. [15:30] Mark: Jesus. [15:30] JD: And it's titled Schlichter says Empower Improperly use data in 4.1K manage account push if you're in this business. We've talked about this on the show many times. We were all very aware that Empower was making a heavy push in these rollovers. I've brought up many conspiracy theories, Wendy, about how advisors should be very wary of this and that Empower is kind of creeping in on their business. I also understand a lot of advisors don't do rollovers, so they're kind of okay with it. But I saw some interesting comments online from people that had even reached out to Empower and asked them to stop doing this to some of their clients and apparently weren't getting the results they wanted. But I digress. Boy, empowers in a lot of headlines these days, aren't they? I feel like. I feel like Ed Murphy is like, is he okay? Is he holding up? I feel like he's just getting shot at left and right from all this stuff. [16:31] Chad: And empowers, I feel like they're the Yankees right now. Everybody's coming after him and saying shit, but they just keep on winning. That's what the Yankees have done for so long. That's what Empowers doing. They're winning. [16:43] JD: Maybe that's what Ed Murphy thinks is okay. No big deal. Okay. [16:48] Mark: Why did you say the Browns for that analogy, Chad? [16:51] Chad: I wonder why. Mark, [16:54] JD: let me set this up a little bit. Schlichter has mentioned this before. We all know Schlichter does not like the concept of using participant data to monetize the participant in this lawsuit. It's talking about the fees for these rollover managed accounts being in the vicinity of like 1.35%. It's got a 55 basis point wrap. And then so I don't know what kind of investments they're using, but it sounds like it's in the vicinity of 80 basis points or something. Just to note if you have over 400k in those things, I think the 55 drops to 25. So then maybe you're somewhere in that kind of 1% range. But the lawsuit is about, hey, first of all, this is expensive. Secondly, you're using sleazy sales tactics to do it. Let me, let me read from the opening line. A new suit challenges quote, a scheme. A scheme is what the Boogeyman uses Schlichter. A scheme to significantly mislead retirement plan participants and greatly enhance corporate profits. That's the quote. Like this is how Schlichter sees this stuff. Wendy, do you think, does it, does this plan have a plan advisor? [18:13] Chad: Maybe. [18:13] JD: And what I want to ask you, is the plan advisor have any responsibility or role here to know that this is going on or the plan sponsor? Like what's the plan sponsors role in this or are they just innocent bystanders to empowers? Kind of. I can't call it evil yet because there's been no gavel thrown on the table yet. There's no decision here. We don't know whether this is right or wrong. Let me ask you that. How do you feel about this whole thing? Is this right or wrong in your book? [18:40] Wendy Eldridge: Well, I think in that they talked about that the plan sponsor is not part of the lawsuit. So they let them out, but they're not part of it. So this is a huge issue to folks like me who my company does do individual wealth. We do do rollovers. And so my, my internal, my external Empower wholesaler, great guy, friends with them. You know, my head has popped off 16 times when I found out that Empower is, you know, contacting this. I will tell you one story that happened that my head literally popped off my body. I had a, a individual in a 401k plan. The person died at. The wife called me to help me. She was kind of clueless with everything. The balance was $800,000. She was trying to call Empower to get things set up. And the person on the other line, they transferred her to the sales, they swooped it, literally just jamming her $800,000 about rolling it over, rolling it over, rolling it over. She felt very uncomfortable. She had her son call me and say I feel like something's wrong. Like they're really trying to hard sell me. I was like, there is no way that this happened. I got the call logs, I made them do the recordings of it. Oh, it happened, it happened. [19:56] JD: And so for the call logs and everything, I didn't know this. This is juicy stuff. This is great. [20:04] Wendy Eldridge: Yes. So what then I was told was at that point they will never Call anybody and we set the threshold of what the balances would be. But my, my. The. The response to me being upset about empower doing this is that empower stance, at least my personal opinion is if. If you have an advisor who isn't doing this, then they're not getting the help that they should be getting. So that's why we're doing it. [20:29] JD: That's how they. That's exactly how he defends it in interviews. And to the. To the point of, like, most don't is what he's saying. You know, most don't. So this is like a great service. But. But he also always says that, hey, when people like you, Wendy, or. Or Nate Moody reach out and say, hey, don't do this, that they somehow don't. And I don't know, it seems like [20:50] Mark: that's throw Moody in this same conversation as Wendy. Come on, dude. That's like, Wendy Moody. Come on. What are we doing? Just because he was on a commercial for Maine. [21:05] JD: I almost brought that up tonight, but I didn't. We're not going to talk about that. Okay, that's great, Wendy. That's really interesting to hear. Well, it's not about just pissing off advisors now. It's about Schlichter saying this is not okay. And Chad, where do you think this thing is going to land? Is Schlichter going to make some headway here or will Ed Murphy be the victor? [21:31] Chad: And I mean, in the little that I'm able to read on that article, it certainly looks like there will be traction for Schlichter here. Leveraging data is one thing. I don't think that's the argument here. When you look at what he says in the beginning of his disclosure. He says that they targeted people with high balances close to retirement that were unsophisticated investors. I'm not sure how they're determining their unsophisticated investors in terms of targeting them, [22:05] JD: because everybody, basically, I know Schlichter wants [22:08] Chad: to go after the fact that the data is a plan asset and should not be shared and leveraged in that way. But I'm not sure that's the case we're looking at here. I think what we're really looking at is to what Nate said up top, which is here you have a business that has access, which has always been my point in this conversation, access to all of this opportunity. And now they're going to cross sell every last thing that they have. And I've always been, Wendy, in defense of the ability to Cross sell if it's something that the participant needs. If someone were to reach out to me right now and say, chad, I get it. You're about to take a mortgage out on a home. Let me chat with you about what, since we're our plans with Nationwide, what Nationwide could do to help you in comparison to your local bank, I would be very happy to have that conversation. But that's not what tends to happen. It's cross selling of any product that creates margin for these businesses. [23:03] JD: Well, and Wendy's example is kind of like the worst of the worst. Like, you think this is all like little, like $5,000, $10,000 rollovers with people that you want to do it in a way, not some poor woman who's got close to a million bucks and is just being, you know, pushed into something. That was part of the lawsuit, too, that Schlichter was saying is that apparently these sales tactics are pretty aggressive. So that could play a part, you know, in. [23:32] Chad: Certainly could. [23:33] JD: Obviously they've got the recording. When do you. [23:36] Chad: Here's the thing, JD. You. You. the beginning of this, you talked about empower. And I said, they continue to win. They continue to win because advisors continue to be a distribution channel for them. Now, the product is good, the technology is good. To Nate's point, the costs are solid, but. But it seems like everybody's getting so frustrated about the rollovers and distribution aspect, the decumulation side of that plan, that at some point our advisor is going to jump ship and stop selling it. I don't see that happening. [24:08] JD: This is what we've talked about in the past, and it hasn't. Yeah, it hasn't happened. So. Yeah, you're right. He's kind of getting the last laugh there. People like the product, they're using it. The price is well in micro markets, mid markets, mega markets, at price as well. They've got a lot of very big clients that they. That they tend to like, talk about, you know, that they have that impress people. So, yeah, we'll see. But I do think that I am very interested from a legality standpoint how this one plays out, because this is a very specific thing that's going down. And I know that this is very similar to the Teachers Industry Association. Whatever. [24:51] Mark: Nice it up. [24:53] JD: Yeah, it's very similar to that. And. And I. How did that play out? That didn't really play out the way Schlichter wanted, did it? It kind of. [25:00] Wendy Eldridge: I. [25:01] JD: Someone tell me. I forget how that lawsuit played out. [25:04] Wendy Eldridge: Well, I was gonna say, I think the thing I was gonna say, JD is the thing about what I feel like is different about this is, I think in the past, like you said, the focus has been more on the data. This is now on the sales tactic, which I really haven't seen that kind of piece. [25:18] Mark: True. [25:19] JD: That's very different. [25:21] Chad: So hold on. One quick comment before you transition. Paul Crawford just made the comment. Their technology is too good for plan sponsors to ignore. I'm not disagreeing with that, Paul. But the plan sponsor doesn't know Empower from the other 10 vendors. So it's the advisor community that continues to bring Empower to the plan sponsor to then acknowledge the strength in their technology and product. So that was kind of my question. There is. We all are a distribution channel for them. They're not fidelity yet. They're not selling plans without having a distribution channel. And so I think. I think that advisors will continue to sell it because the product is that good, because the technology is that good. But the plan sponsors aren't buying the technology. They're buying the Advisor, and the advisor's bringing them that technology. [26:06] JD: It's you, Paul. It's not that you're to blame. I get your joke in there. But it this stuff sold, it's not bought. We all know that. And so it's you guys and girls out there that are selling this stuff. And you like the product still. I bet if I was Ed Murphy, I would very much, regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, I would very much shore up that agreement between my advisors and I, you know, my real partners are advisors and make sure that I'm not stepping on their toes in these situations. And I'm sure that's easier said than done. Let's spin the Wheel of Ice, shall we? Let's see where it lands on there. [26:48] Chad: Oh, I hope it lands on Justin. Didn't it land on me last week when I wasn't there? [26:52] JD: I forgot. Wow. How is that even possible? [26:58] Chad: I'll take it for him. [26:59] JD: Okay. Thank you, Mark. You see a trend here. I don't want to state the obvious, but, Wendy, when the Wheel of Ice first started, which was literally like 10 years ago, the original bit was it would always land on Mark. Like, we do it on purpose. And now we're. And then for the last, like four years, it's been a very fair and equitable wheel that could land on anyone, but it's slowly migrating back to its natural, you know, what it needs to be, which is what, landing on you all the time. [27:33] Chad: But apparently, did you not see the Wheel. The wheel is big marks and tiny. Everybody else's. [27:38] Mark: Okay. I was just making sure. Yeah, I was gonna say. Because I figured that that's where we were going with this. And then it doesn't land on me. So maybe I thought Brandon was just trying to make it funnier. [27:52] JD: Next headline to talk about is A Big One. A Big One. A big one. This comes to you from Pitchfork.com Justin Bieber people out with a new album titled Swag. I will read from here. Pop's youngest elder statesman. That's an oxymoron. Continues to evolve his rhythm and blues. Didn't say that I knew what that means. Sound. By enlisting some big names from the underground. His seventh album is Warm. It's blissful and a little out of touch. I'm gonna tell you. [28:29] Chad: Right. [28:30] JD: What do you got going on there? What do you got? [28:32] Chad: She's got a Biebs shirt on. [28:34] JD: Believer. She's a believer. I didn't know this, Wendy. I'm obsessed with this kid. Like, I'm. [28:44] Chad: He's a full grown man. [28:46] Mark: Not. Not a kid. Not a kid. [28:47] JD: I've been listening to this stuff on loop. Do you guys know that I literally refer to, like Empower wholesalers? Voya wholesalers? If they're in their 30s, they're a kid. To me, that. That's a kid. I'm in my 50s, bro. [29:00] Mark: Called your son a kid the other day. [29:03] JD: Yeah, he is. He is. But yeah, Bieber. I don't know if I agree with Bieber's full body tat decisions along the way. I. I would have preferred him to keep that a little. A little cleaner, what have you. But this album I highly recommend to anyone. Wendy, have you listened to it? [29:18] Wendy Eldridge: It's awesome. What's your favorite song? [29:22] JD: I'm obsessed with Yukon right now. It's. It's. It's popping off everywhere. That's the one where he pitched his voice super high. I. I thought it was. I thought it was the chick that was singing it. I forget her name. Damn it. But. And it's not. It's him. Just pitched up. So. I love you, Con. Yes, Roby, what are your thoughts? [29:41] Mark: No, I just want to say. Did you. Did you hear and catch wind about the Bieber impersonator in Vegas? [29:47] Chad: Yes. [29:48] Mark: Guy who does not look like him, but looks at the same time like it's not like it. [29:53] JD: One of those. [29:54] Mark: Like, you do a double take. Like most people would be like, that's not Bieber. But he just so happens to have body tats where whatever he ran up 10,000$. Like he performed an entire song on stage and people. [30:10] Chad: No, he didn't. [30:12] Mark: There's a video of the club owner leaving and guy goes, you got duped, dude. That was not him. And he was like, no way. Like he didn't even know. [30:21] Chad: So yeah, to me, I love that guy. We need to get that guy up on a picture on our screen. [30:27] JD: Apparently he does this a lot and has Bieber's actual tattoos on him. Like for real. That's a little weird. But so he does this as like a gig. But yeah, I'm with you, Mark. I saw it online. I'm like, that is. It kind of looks like Justin put on like £15 or something and. But. But I don't know if you're drunk in Vegas at. [30:52] Mark: Right. [30:52] JD: Yeah, yeah, X or whatever. You're probably like, it's him. Oh my God. [30:57] Mark: For sure. [30:58] Chad: J.D. i'll give you this. I. I had not listened to his. His new. But I did put it on while I was prepping for the show and sending out some emails. It's good. [31:09] Mark: Yeah, it's good. [31:10] Chad: I liked it. [31:11] JD: To answer your question, this is very cliche because this is the one that everyone loves. But Daisies, obviously is a great song too, but. But I really like the Yukon thing. And I think it's just a great listen from start to finish. Brian Grafton. [31:25] Mark: So we have to dig in this a little deeper. Wendy, you have the shirt on. So how many concerts have you. Have you attended? [31:33] Wendy Eldridge: 100% honest. Never gone to a concert. [31:36] Mark: Okay, okay. [31:36] Wendy Eldridge: Now my daughter, of course I don't get to go. I pay for my daughter to go because it cost $10,000 for her. And her and her friends go and they cry. They cry when he comes on stage. [31:48] JD: I would cry. [31:49] Wendy Eldridge: Yes. But so, but huge, huge fan, I have to say. [31:53] Mark: So they such. Such supporters that they like buy the makeup products that his wife just made billions of dollars off of. [32:02] Wendy Eldridge: Like they bought them before. So. [32:04] Mark: Got it. [32:05] JD: Okay. Hey, way to transition to business, Roby. Yeah. His wife, Haley Baldwin. Haley Bieber is started road. Am I getting that right? Road or something like that. But sold it for a billion. A billion billion dollars. Okay. This is right up your alley, Wendy. This is a new segment for us. This is the second time we've done it and it's all about fin talk, like financial on Tick Tock or Instagram reels. And everybody, you know our producer Brandon, sometimes he does good work. He whipped up a little, little segment intro. So Brandon, let's play the. The Old tick tock segment. It doesn't have a name. And the way this works, Wendy, we're just gonna throw one up and then we're gonna talk about it. [33:00] Wendy Eldridge: So can I just say something I saw last week. I would love for this to be a permanent addition going forward because it's super. [33:07] Chad: I agree. [33:08] JD: Robey likes it too. Yeah, yeah, I do too. Well, here we are. We're doing it again, so it's got promise. Go ahead, Brandon, just pop one off. Honestly, boys, if you want to get rich, get drunk, right? Go to a casino, take out all the money you have, and then just let the liquor do it. [33:23] Chad: The better advice was just if you can't lose that money, don't gamble. [33:27] JD: Oh yeah, don't gamble money that you can, man. I mean, unless it's a lock. There's no such thing as a lock. Here's my method. Whenever you lose, you just borrow money from the casino. You lost everything. People hating on drinking, people hating on gambling. It's like, have you ever tried to combine both? I don't know. [33:46] Mark: We'll do it. [33:49] JD: You know, I guess my question is, he's got a concept there, like, which I. You think I'd be a big fan of. Like mixing a little bit of alcohol with finances. Like, it could, it could bring good results. Yes or no? I. I don't know. [34:04] Mark: The next day, you wake up to 17Amazon boxes and you say, oops. [34:09] JD: What do you think about being drunk and making financial decisions? [34:14] Wendy Eldridge: I am in Mark's lines. It has happened on occasion. And there were 16 boxes the next day, which was not good. [34:21] JD: So, yeah, shopping. [34:23] Chad: But that is how I ended up with the best purchase of my Covid life, which was the inflatable hot tub. [34:29] Mark: Oh, that was fun. [34:32] JD: I don't know. [34:34] Mark: Let's be honest. Hold on, time out real quick because I. This is a great segment. I think this is important. And we're all just having fun here. But that guy, the guy up here has a massive following. Millions of people, they do pranks and stuff, but they have a captive audience of, let's be honest, dumb, dumb kids, right? And he says that. And they're like, okay, I should do that. And they go out and do it. So why do you think that next thing had to be done? Because they're like, hey, you're going to get in trouble for this. There's lawyers and stuff involved. You better say, like, don't actually do that. I was kidding. But to me, it's just like this. Those funny haha videos when you have that many followers and that many people are paying attention, you can get some serious nowadays. [35:18] JD: Yeah, well, to his point of getting drunk and going to the casino, I have to say, being totally honest with everyone, I mean, I'm coming straight from. I make my most money playing blackjack. When I hammered, I swear to God. Because sometimes, and this might be true in investing, I mean, just like the Roby, you missed the new retirement retirehogs target day fund that's coming out. But some. Sometimes you just gotta go big or go home, you know? [35:51] Mark: Yeah. Do you remember when. Do you remember when you and I in Vegas left the table and then I saw a roulette board that had all reds and I was like, let's put it all on black. And then we lost all our money? Do you remember that? Yeah. [36:05] JD: Yeah. Well, you know, was it. [36:07] Chad: Was it fun? Was it worth the expense? [36:10] Mark: Damn right it was fun, but it was really sad. [36:13] Chad: But, hey, the good financial advice in that video was don't gamble money you can't afford to lose. You could afford to lose that. That's why you put it all on black at that point in time. And it was a wonderful time until you lost. [36:27] JD: Those guys said. That's what those guys said. The original guy said, go take everything you have out of your bank account. Okay, let's go to the. Let's go to the next one. Brandon, play us another one. If you saved a dollar a day for a year, do you know how much money you'd have? Roughly $30,000. I'm gonna head back to sleep. I don't even know why the I woke up in the first. [36:51] Mark: I love that guy. [36:53] JD: Is she making any sense? Is it because I feel like maybe she is making some sense. So. [36:59] Wendy Eldridge: So this is why we have to make tick Tock videos to offset the bad tick Tock videos. [37:05] JD: Okay, you go, girl. You're doing that. But could she possibly. Chad, is she possibly referring to, like, the power of compounding? So maybe. Maybe she's. Hold on, hold on. [37:18] Chad: I'm typing it in right now. To Waves. What would it take in a rate of return to save a dollar a day for a year and end up with $30,000? [37:31] JD: Wait, but she's. She's young. So maybe what she's saying is that dollar a day will be worth this much. [37:38] Chad: And when she's 65. Okay, fair enough. Waves comes back and says you need an 8,022% rate of return in a year to make $365. [37:51] Mark: I'm trying to save a dollar day one, $2 day two, $3 day three. And then at that point. Does the math. Math. [38:00] Wendy Eldridge: No, she's saying a dollar a day for the next. [38:02] Mark: Like, but, but I'm saying what is. She just said it out loud but didn't think about what she was saying and then was wrong. I needed to revise it. [38:11] JD: Yeah. Could her $365 be worth whatever she said it was in. In 40 years? Sure. Right. That could. You could play that out. And by the way, listening in, if you want an 8,000% return, there's only one place to get that. That's the Fireholics Target Day Fund. One third in private equity, 1/3 in crypto and one third in drunk stock tips. Okay, let's go to the next one. [38:37] Mark: Your point? [38:38] Chad: 30 and a half years. If I saved a dollar a day for one year with a 6% rate of return, it would take 30 and a half years for it to be $30,000. [38:47] JD: There you go. There you go. Albert Einstein was a smart man and he thought the, the concept of compounding kind of blew his mind. So go figure. Let's play the next one. [38:58] Speaker E: How I would invest $1,000 if I were starting all over. This is day one of 30 of my lessons on finance. First I'd invest $400 into an S&P 500 ETF like ticker symbols, Voo or Spy. Now this is typically the largest holding of any portfolio I by starts and in the past five years it is up 98%. Next I would put 200 into QQQ. That's the ETF that tracks technology and growth stocks. And in the past five years it's up 118. Then I would put 300 into individual stocks. So I would pick three stocks and put a hundred dollars into each of them. You want individual companies that'll still be around in 40 years or more. So think of your companies like Apple, Meta, Nvidia, G, JP Morgan, etc. It's important not to buy any penny stocks or speculative stocks. Before I tell you what I would do with the last hundred, make sure you're following me for another lesson tomorrow. [39:48] JD: All right. [39:48] Speaker E: My last hundred dollars is staying in a high yield savings account, earning interest and also waiting for opportunities. I think this split provides a lot of diversification to stocks via ETFs as well as some concept. I'm doing it long term stable companies. [40:03] JD: Wendy. [40:04] Wendy Eldridge: I actually follow this guy. [40:06] JD: Do you? Okay. You okay. What's your thoughts on what he just said there? Because I've got a few. [40:14] Wendy Eldridge: Well, first of all, I always take my daughter, who's 26. If she understands something, okay, she would have watched that approximately 0.02 seconds and then would have gone off to something else because it wasn't fun like the other videos to like, you know, grab your attention. That's the problem, at least that he's. I always feel like in his videos he's at least reasonable. [40:33] JD: I love that you follow him. You're a true TikTok pro. Here's my. I'm going to be an asshole here, okay? I'm going to play financial services guy. He said the first thing he wants to put money into is a Standard Poor's 500, which we all know these days is heavily influenced by Silicon Valley and the technology companies, right? Like the magic correlation, whatever they call them. And so that's heavily pushed by, by Google, Meta, Apple, et cetera, et cetera, I think to the tune of like 40% or something. Okay? And then he went on to say, the next place I would put my money is in the I'll drink the qqq, which is a tech based fund. And then he went so far as then I take my other money and I would put it in three individual stocks. And my jaw was on the ground when he said Apple meta Nvidia. And then literally in the next sentence he goes, he's talking about diversification. And I was like, bro, this is the most undiversified concept strategy that you just came up with. And that to me was where I'm being the old guy now. You know, get off my lawn. Like, this guy doesn't know about investing. I didn't. [41:52] Mark: You're just mad. You're just mad because he didn't say crypto. That's why you're mad. [41:57] JD: I'm just saying that strategy is not diversified. Am I wrong, Chad? Did that make sense? [42:02] Chad: You're not. And it made perfect sense. That correlation is heavy there. But let's not put it past the average person watching that video that will have no idea that pretty much everything he just described has a heavy technology play. And let's also look at the average 401k core menu that has a significant amount of overlap as well. So he's speaking to his audience, I guess. [42:28] JD: You know what I want to talk about more on this show is I'm hearing people talk about or refer to the standard porous 500 as the Standard Poor's 493 or something, which I think is really interesting because when I grew up in this industry, we use that as an index, it was a big deal to benchmark against certain things. It's the most common kind of index. And now that it's so skewed because of seven or eight companies, it changes the narrative. And so I would like to talk about that on this show a little more in the future. But if you're on TikTok, which I don't know, raise your hand in the chat. Or if you are, I erase all my social media shit, Wendy. I literally got rid of my Instagram app and my TikTok app. And then because of this fucking segment, I put them back on my phone and now I've been doom scrolling again. I'm. I'm getting them off. I'm gonna. [43:29] Mark: Why did you get rid of them, J.D. well, yeah. Did you have a problem? Did Tracy call you out? [43:36] JD: Like, oh, my God, Tracy's so bad. So are my kids. Like, I just watched my kids and my wife scrolling that damn phone. I'm not. You What? You. [43:44] Mark: Not them. [43:45] JD: I think I had enough of an issue where I didn't want to do it anymore. Like, I'm like, I want to stop doing this. [43:51] Chad: I. I knew that I needed to 80, so I put maybe about a month, a little less than a month. I put a one year, a one hour limit per day on all my socials, including LinkedIn. [44:04] Mark: Parental controls on your own stuff, [44:08] JD: Wendy. Like, many years ago, like, it was probably like seven or eight years ago, Chad was on Retireaholics and he goes, he says, I don't get this Instagram thing. All it is is like golf and chicks in bikinis. And then we were like, we were cracking up because Chad had no idea about, like, his algorithm. [44:29] Mark: Algorithm is, bro, I don't understand [44:33] JD: golf. And we were just cracking up. It was so hilarious. Okay. [44:36] Wendy Eldridge: Although it could have been something worse. [44:38] JD: Yeah, true. I guess. [44:40] Chad: Could have been. [44:42] JD: All right, let's move on. But Wendy, thank you for. Oh, wait, that's what I want to say. If you're on Tick Tock, Wendy's on Tick Tock. She's doing that. I saw your little Nicki Minaj. Is it Nicki Minaj at the challenge? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can't do that. So, Wendy, where do they follow you on Tick Tock and Instagram? Let them know. 401k's rock four one case rock. [45:07] Mark: What is the Nicki Minaj Challenge? [45:09] Chad: What does that mean? [45:10] Wendy Eldridge: So, J.D. i do have to ask you, thank you for watching that. I was specifically and strategically sitting on a book. Do you Remember what? [45:20] JD: Oh no, I didn't see the book. Is it Arista Online book? [45:24] Wendy Eldridge: You need to go back and look now. [45:26] Chad: Okay, I will dangle that carrot for you. Another view. [45:33] Wendy Eldridge: I think I have seven, mark. So now I have eight. Thank you. [45:36] JD: But everyone go check that out. And yeah, I mean, we haven't talked about it enough tonight, but Wendy does on Instagram and Tick tock, pretty much 95 of her posts are 401k related posts. And she's trying to kind of bring that, you know, fun to that content. So obviously here at Retireholics, we're, we're fans of that. Fans of that. Let's, let's go. This one I thought was alarming. This is the article, Brandon, about sponsors not claiming their tax credits. [46:13] Chad: This was jarring. [46:14] Wendy Eldridge: I. Because this made me go to my own clients. I hope everybody who's watching this and everybody who replays this, this is so huge. I'm so happy about this one. [46:25] JD: Yeah, let's dig into it. Check out this people. Shocking information. This organization did a study and said that for eligible plans, the percentage of people that are plans that are getting their tax credits is on the low end, 1% and on the high end, 5%. Now remember, we've had these types of tax credits for several years, but then Secure 2.0 really boosted them up. Right? Secure 2.0 took these credits where you could have 100% of your startup costs up to 5K. Which when that was coming out, I was on this very podcast going like, holy shit, that's going to be insanely awesome. To Chad's point, like, oh my God. To be able to talk to clients about this. I think the article even says you could cover all your startup costs in that first year. And to think that even if you go to the high end and think that 5% of the plans that are eligible for this, that is absolutely shocking. Wendy, whose fault is it? Is it the record keeper's fault? The third party administrator's fault? The financial advisor, the certified public accountant, the plan sponsor? Like, who's to blame here? [47:41] Wendy Eldridge: Well, the pro. Here's the problem. And I had this on a couple of my plans. You start the plan and it's April and you remind them, remember that you can have these tax credits. I'm not kidding you. When you brought this article, I have my to dos to make sure that they're telling their CPAs. So I don't know if it's anybody's per se fault. I would say, though as an advisor, I do feel at Fault. If my clients didn't get everything, I would blame myself to not follow up with them to tell them that. [48:10] JD: So I. I'm imagining that you probably feel the same way as a tpa. Aren't you going to tell me that? Geez, jd, couldn't we do something to like you're not. Okay. [48:21] Chad: I am not. This one hits home. And in full transparency. You know, I sit on the committee for plan consultants. We've been trying for about six months to statistically get data from the Internal Revenue Service on how many 8881s have been filed so that we can actually show. Because the common theme amongst the 30 third party administrators that sit on that committee is that we are not being asked for the data. [48:51] Mark: Right. [48:52] Chad: Where is the certified public accountant going to get the data of how many eligible folks? How many were non highlys? How many were under a certain income threshold? What were the expenses? They're getting that from us. From Wendy, from the. From the third party minister, from record keeper. [49:08] JD: Normal. A normal. Not so smart. I'll drink. CPA would. Would go to the client to ask for that stuff too. Client could. [49:16] Chad: Yeah, but then, but then where would the client go? Jd, that's my point. The data has to come from the providers, whether that be us or the record keeper. And I. Not one time have I been asked. Hold on, Mark, give me one sec. Not one time have I been asked. But the truth is. And Mark, you can validate this. Are you talking about it on every single startup? Yeah. Are you telling them what form it takes? Yeah. Are we telling them they need to talk to their certified public accountant to get this work done? Yeah. To. To. To Moody's Point in the chat bar. How many CPAs are paying attention to this and doing zero? I don't know. A single one. Not a single one. [49:59] Wendy Eldridge: Wait, can I ask a question? [50:02] Mark: Yeah. [50:02] Wendy Eldridge: So, Chad, is this something that you feel like though, could TPAs put this as part of their process at the end of the year in terms of we got to get the census file, we got to get this. Oh, by the way, remind on that [50:14] JD: you can do one better. We can do one better than that. And when do you owe a drink of your rose? Third party administrator is the correct term on this show, not the acronym. It could even be a separate communication. It could be its own communication that just says, hey, you started a new plan. We see that you qualify for this and we just wanted to, you know, ping you. [50:35] Mark: Reminder. Reminder. [50:36] JD: You don't have to bury it in your end Work or anything. Like, it could be something to do. I'd love to hear you say that. You feel like you want to step up as an advisor. I feel like record keepers could even step up. I think that's the real important conversation right now is as an industry. Yeah. [50:55] Mark: Yeah. [50:55] JD: We all need to do something about this. Like, this is horrible. [51:00] Mark: Like, yeah, the point there, you said, jd, who is to blame? It's nobody's to blame. It's just how can we actually work together to come up with a way for all of us just to simply remind people. It doesn't. It doesn't take a lot. It doesn't take much. We have email addresses, we have contact information, we have metrics. But my. My point going back a little bit is to Chad's point is, yeah, so we bring on a new client, like Wendy said, in April. Well, an entire year plus goes by until they're even filing their taxes. So no one's. That's not front of mind at all. So when I read that, I was angry, but when I. But when I read it, I was also not incredibly surprised. But the fact that someone's putting it out there is a reminder now, Chad, stop moaning and groaning over there, buddy. It's a reminder to all of us, all of us sitting right here that, yeah, we need to do something. [52:04] JD: And it's all. [52:04] Mark: It is partially on us. Like, we are on the front lines. We do need to do more. [52:09] Chad: Here's where I'll argue, Mark, we certainly can and we certainly should do more. [52:15] JD: But let's. [52:15] Chad: Let's point a little finger here. Who is responsible for doing the businesses taxes? [52:21] JD: Yeah, the fucking businesses. [52:23] Chad: It's the cpa. That's what you fucking pay them for. You guys, they're supposed to know what deductions they can claim for. [52:30] JD: You know, I'm sure you do that many small businesses that start up a foreign K plan do their own taxes they don't have. [52:40] Chad: You guys are both wrong. And that's why. So that's why I added it to our prq. That's why I've. Damn. That's why I've added it to our systems. [52:48] Mark: We also collect information and contact information about a certified public account. Why don't we just send a blast out, Mark, what did I do? [52:56] Chad: What did I do? In February, I sent a blast to our CPA saying, don't forget your clients open to startup. So plan design consultants are doing these things. [53:06] JD: Mark, Nate Moody. [53:08] Mark: I didn't see. [53:09] JD: I don't think blast. But I'm not saying that, that the certified public accountant should like, like do it all because they don't. I get that they don't have the data, but I feel like they're the one that should be. That to Chad's point is like they should have exists. I need to get this from my clients. So now let me reach out and get this data. But with that said, and I saw chap. I think I usually like to say that third party administrators shouldn't be responsible for certain things because I'm biased. I think this fits pretty well for, for a third party administrator. [53:39] Wendy Eldridge: So you're saying jd, that TPA should be at fault? [53:43] JD: I think that [53:48] Chad: Wendy. [53:48] JD: I think the fault. [53:50] Mark: Justin Bieber's at fault. [53:51] JD: Okay, the fault lies with the client, but I think that the third party. No, it doesn't. Hang on, hang on. Is in a great position to, to make a difference here. And I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, but probably more than anyone else, I want to shift to the prospecting mode. Tony Davis said like, he mentioned like searching 5500 for new plans. Does that timing make sense? Chad, do you think an aggressive advice. Not aggressive Motivated advisor could find startup plans and would there be enough time to look at a 5500 to say are you getting your 5K? [54:34] Chad: Did you. [54:35] JD: If you're not, because apparently 95% of them are. [54:39] Chad: I have never thought about that to be completely honest. And yes. Beautiful. Go in, run a search on 5500 for first year filings, reach out to those plan sponsors and said ask your CPA if you've got your credit for last year. If not, let's talk and I'll make sure that you get it for this coming year. Beautiful. Beautiful. [55:03] Mark: Chad, are you, are you in your new house? [55:06] Chad: No, I'm at home. I'm at my current home. [55:09] JD: Hey everyone. On a personal note, I was able to walk through Chad's beautiful brand new home that he's built. It's not quite done, just finishing stuff, but he gave me this whole tour. I'm a little upset, Wendy, as his boss because his office is downstairs and it's a beautiful little office. And you know what he built right next to his office? A golf simulator slash bar. And I'm thinking is he gonna be productive or is he gonna kind of, you know, spend a lot of time over in the golf simulator in the bar? So I, I have some concerns about that. Some concerns. [55:52] Chad: Hey, by the way, your father in law told me that we're no longer allowed to Use the term boss. It is now leader. You are my leader, not my boss. That's what Paul Senior told me. I'm. No. I'm no longer allowed to say. [56:09] JD: Do you know who's paying Paul Senior to. To help us? Your boss. [56:20] Wendy Eldridge: Can we have a mic drop on that one, please? [56:23] JD: Wendy, I want to give you the last take on the startup credits and the. So close this out for us. I'm guessing you're just saying this is a big. Hold on. I got to move on. [56:35] Mark: He and I. I know, I know. He and I don't see eye to eye, but he had a great point. Wendy, you got to throw out a TikTok of tax credits. [56:43] Wendy Eldridge: I'm already there. I was just going to say. So My last point, JD is definitely. This will be on LinkedIn to talk about and I do need to come up with some fun tick tock with it. So. [56:53] JD: Yeah, yeah, that's a great one. That's a great one. You do all your own editing and stuff too. [56:59] Wendy Eldridge: You're so. I am absolutely clueless on that. Thank God for my 26 year old daughter because I don't know what I'm doing. [57:05] JD: Okay, she does it for you. Okay, good. [57:07] Chad: Hey, and. And I'll make one last plug. Ricky Taylor's writing the article for Plan Consultant and we'll see what data we get. But he's trying to prove that it's not being used. The current secure 2.0 credits. [57:20] JD: Shocker. Just shocker. Like we haven't. [57:22] Mark: Lawyers should be able to go back and claw it back somehow too. We should make a push for that. [57:28] JD: Oh yeah, I like that. Hey, hey, Brian Graff. Brandon, play the. Play the beer thing we have Brian Butterbeer. Hey, Brian Graff. Why don't you go. Yummy. Why don't you. Why don't you go. [57:46] Wendy Eldridge: Remember that one? [57:48] JD: Go lobby for these plan sponsors to go and get their credit like three years later or something. You know, like I don't get it. We're going to give it to them in the first place. Okay, that was a good one. I think probably one of the most impactful kind of topics that we need to do something about as an industry. So we'll continue to keep our finger on the pulse of that one. Beneficiaries. What were we going to talk about? Beneficiaries. Did I give an article? Did I? I thought I did. [58:20] Chad: You did. [58:21] JD: Brandon, what was the article? Because I'm. I've been drinking. [58:25] Chad: National association of Plan Advisors. I hit it, Mark. [58:29] JD: I've been drinking. A lot of vodka in my free time. And. It's true. I don't know where the article is. [58:43] Chad: I'll tee it up. Jd it was commentary, and I forget what the case was, but essentially, a participant who had put his girlfriend as a beneficiary time lapsed a very long time, and there was a pushback on the record keeper that they did not properly communicate to the participant that the ex girlfriend was still the beneficiary. And the result, I think, of it was they did properly communicate to the participant that she was still the beneficiary and no new one was elected. And therefore the record keeper was not at fault. The plan sponsor was not at fault for not going to their participant and say, hey, did you know that your ex girlfriend from 15 years ago was still your beneficiary of this $800,000 401 account? [59:37] JD: Even said something in there like, hey, maybe that's what he wanted. You don't know? Maybe he really liked her. He's like, sorry, honey, it's my ex. Wendy. Beneficiary forms seems so easy. We've got many electronic tech tools to do this these days, but it definitely is the. I'll stop using this term someday in my life. But it's the redheaded stepchild of all tasks that need to get done, right? Like, sorry, redheaded stepchildren. That's not fair. Like, nobody gives a shit about beneficiary forms, and no one seems to want to. Kind of like our last subject, no one seems to really want to, like, take responsibility for it. So, as a retirement plan advisor, where does this sit on your radar? [1:00:26] Wendy Eldridge: This is a huge one for me because right now, I don't know why, but 2025, it's. If it feels like back in the pandemic, I've. I'm literally working on three beneficiary claims of people who did not have beneficiaries listed because they weren't married. One of them was a dad who had two girls. He was, like, 60. He had two daughters, did not list them. And so they've been in probate for a year trying to get the money, [1:00:52] JD: because for everyone to know, like, there is a process, and eventually, sort of per the courts, like, the right people in quotes will get the money, right? But. But gosh darn it, the simple concept here is, hey, you've saved up this money. It's your money. You're allowed to name a beneficiary. You know, unless you're married, then your spouse is your beneficiary. But you're allowed to do this, so why wouldn't you? And I guess people just don't think about dying. They don't care about that kind of stuff. [1:01:25] Chad: They don't think about. [1:01:26] Wendy Eldridge: They don't want to think about it as the problem. [1:01:29] JD: Got it? Yeah. [1:01:30] Wendy Eldridge: And I guess I would just say, as retirement plan advisors, every single time you talk to a participant, you need to ask that question. It doesn't matter what you're talking to them about. Every single time you talk to a participant, even if you've talked to them about it 10 times, you need to remind them not just on the 401k, on any IRA, life insurance, annuity, anything that they have. Every time you talk to somebody, you have to remind them. [1:01:52] JD: Shoot, I put a pause button on this. [1:01:56] Mark: Webby. [1:01:56] JD: Webby's been married twice. Who would leave Webby? Webby How? Oh, maybe they just weren't good enough for Yale. That's it. That's it. That's it. Like, I'm. My God. I mean, Webby might have. Oh, yeah. [1:02:09] Chad: I was gonna say maybe I wasn't gonna go there. [1:02:12] JD: Did they die and not have a beneficiary? No, he just got divorced. I don't know it. Okay, first one is a cool story. [1:02:20] Chad: We need some Webby stories. [1:02:23] JD: Oh, this is what I want. I always like to kind of bring. I don't know why. Call it the sleazy part of me. I like to bring sales into this a little bit at some point. Do you think, as an advisor, Wendy walking into a new prospect. Let's just close her eyes and imagine it's a, you know, $50 million plan. And you walk into the point of sale, and you say, hey, one of the things I'm passionate about is making sure that every damn person's got a beneficiary form filled out. And I work hard to do that with the record keeper, what have you. Like, it doesn't sound sexy, but there could be a lot of human resources, chief financial officers, decision makers that might. Might like to hear that in a point of sale, or am I reaching now? [1:03:02] Wendy Eldridge: No, you're 100%. I will tell you just a recent story that happened that was not in my sales pitch, but when I took over a plan, one of the things that we talked about is beneficiaries. And do you have them? And the CFO was adamant that they went through this whole process, so I said, okay, let me just run a report. The owner of the company did not have the beneficiary listed. And so I Had to be very careful in letting him know that that didn't. And so, so, but they were. They'll probably be a client for the rest of my life because the owner was so grateful that he didn't have it. And, and he had like 16 beneficiaries that he wanted to add it. That's why he didn't have it before. And I made him do it and put all the stuff through. But. But yes, I do think that that could. Because people aren't talking about it enough. [1:03:49] Chad: Did you. Did you both see Moody's point in the chat bar, which is automatic enrollment, especially required on plans with more than 10 people that are starting up? You have all these folks being auto enrolled with no sign on to the website, no declaration of a beneficiary in there. That's a. That's a big one there. If you're stepping into a plan and you run that report and you see that 20, 30% of people have never elected a beneficiary. Time to get dirty and get in there and help these folks. [1:04:19] JD: Mark doesn't want to hear this, but Moody's got a smart brain on him. You know, on our last subject, he said that the real. The real mystery here is why those plan sponsors are not getting that tax credit. Because as an industry, we seem to think that cost is like the biggest barrier for these small plans. Oh, that's the. We're not going to get to that article. There was an article we're going to talk about today, but I don't have time for it, where it was talking about how tax companies like human interest and 401 go and ubiquity. Yeah, thanks, Brand actually be able to kind of bring cost down. And Moody's saying, like, do they really care about costs? Because they don't give a. To go get their tax credit. So maybe that's. [1:05:05] Chad: They care about time. [1:05:06] JD: Oh, God, Chad, stop with the administrative responsibility. I'm so tired of that. [1:05:15] Wendy Eldridge: Will said the plan documents have defaults. The plan document does have a default if you are married. If you're not married, it's going to probate. Please correct me if I'm wrong. [1:05:27] JD: That sounds right. [1:05:28] Wendy Eldridge: Okay. [1:05:28] JD: No, it says not true. [1:05:30] Chad: Jd [1:05:32] JD: let's ask someone. Go into Waves Chat K Pro and ask it. You'll get the right answer. It'll let you know. [1:05:40] Chad: Table that. Table that article, though. The providers lean on tech because there's some good there that we need to talk about. [1:05:47] JD: Yeah, I don't know why I want to stick to time tonight. Usually I Go on forever because you're already over. Maybe we could after show it or something. But yeah, we could potentially go to that because I spent a lot of time looking at all those numbers and stuff and I, when I read that article, the one that's up there, I, I get so frustrated. And not just because of the pooled employer plan. [1:06:08] Chad: It leads right into that. [1:06:09] JD: Yeah, that stuff's a little frustrating because the whole thing's about costs. And can we please. I'll say that pooled employer plans are more expensive than standalone plans. They are not cheaper than the very industry that has been proven. They fast up to that. [1:06:24] Chad: Not a debate anymore. [1:06:25] JD: And it's by the way, that's, that's called physics. When you add a pooled plan provider and a 338 and a 316 and all this, it's going to cost more because you're adding. You just. [1:06:36] Mark: Did you just see physics? [1:06:38] JD: Yeah, it's physics, bro. It's like when you drop an apple, it falls to the ground. When you add all these services onto a, onto a plan, it's going to cost more. So we could get into that. And then I love that human interest jumps in and 401 go and you bitcode and it's like, yeah, we do it because we're cheap. And I'm like looking at their fees. I'm like, the only reason you're cheap is because you don't have a fucking advisor on your plan. And do we think that's the right. Oh, here was the quick abbreviated version. Wendy, I'll go to you. Like, do we think that that's a good solution for small startup plans as we try to solve the coverage gap, is to give them 401k plans without financial advisors. [1:07:23] Wendy Eldridge: That would be the worst. [1:07:24] JD: I agree with you. I think that's absolutely crazy talk. Like they need an advisor there. [1:07:30] Wendy Eldridge: Well, I think too that. I don't know. I don't. I didn't feel like you guys talked about it enough on your last show when Carl was talking about that there have not been any lawsuits yet because of the timing. And that timing is coming up. Right. Wasn't he talking. [1:07:46] JD: Oh, the pooled employer plans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. And they need those assets to grow it a Runway. Yeah, that was interesting. He's smart guy. That was, that was good one. Okay, let's. Let's chat bar champion it, shall we? Wendy, you're gonna, you're gonna vote for a chapter champion. Mark's gonna vote for a chat bar champion. Chad's gonna vote for a chat bar champion and then those three are gonna go head to head. Actually, no, I'm going to pick one. Mark's going to pick one, Chad's going to pick one, and they're going to go head to head. And you're going to choose the winner based on their response to a robe guy finishing sentence. Okay. And so I'm going to choose Nate Moody because I love him and I love his sister. Chad, your choice. [1:08:36] Chad: I had already put it in the chat. I was going Moody as well. [1:08:39] JD: Well, you can't because I took him. So. [1:08:41] Chad: Okay, I'm gonna go. Even though he talks some on me, I'm gonna go Hackler. [1:08:50] JD: Hackler. [1:08:50] Chad: Heckler had an involved night. [1:08:53] JD: And Roby, [1:08:58] Mark: because he put his name like this, I'm just gonna throw him in there. Okay. [1:09:05] JD: And so Nate Moody, Hackler and Shaw Shaffner, you need to finish this sentence. What is it, Robbie? [1:09:15] Mark: I'm doing this again. [1:09:17] Chad: Every time. [1:09:18] JD: That's how it works, bro. [1:09:20] Mark: Okay. My favorite Justin Bieber song is blank. [1:09:32] JD: That's it. [1:09:33] Chad: There should be extra points for speed. [1:09:36] JD: Don't be so nice. [1:09:37] Chad: They will not say real one. [1:09:39] Mark: Come on. Think about it though. [1:09:41] JD: Like and why or something I like. [1:09:43] Mark: No, because it. First off, it doesn't have to be a real name of a song. Also, it's relates to our show. [1:09:51] JD: Moody says whatever your sister puts on Roby. So that's a good one. Hackler's going old school, Wendy. He's going baby. And. And I think Sha saying. [1:10:02] Chad: Sha says he wants the song that the impersonator sang. He doesn't know what the impersonator saying, but he wants the song that the impersonator sang is his favorite song. [1:10:11] JD: Those are your choices, Wendy. The Bieber impersonator baby from Hackler or back to Roby. Whatever your sister puts on. [1:10:20] Mark: Well, shop. We talked about this on the show. You can't. You're come. I picked you for a reason, dude. I thought you were better than that. [1:10:29] Wendy Eldridge: I gotta go with baby. [1:10:31] JD: Oh, good for Hack. [1:10:33] Mark: Good for Hack. [1:10:34] Chad: Look at you. Hack knew his audience. Hackney's audience. [1:10:39] JD: Well done. Congratulations. Will Hackler the the most winningest MVP in retireholics history. Without a doubt, William Heckler. And what I'm gonna save you for last, Wendy. Thank you, Chad, for being here. Nerdy Chad. Love you. Appreciate you. Good to have you back. You were sorely missed last week. Roby said new kind of Roby tonight. Wow. Was. You were impressive. According to. [1:11:19] Chad: I liked it. [1:11:21] JD: Usually you're just kind of like, what do you think about that, Robin? You're like, yeah, cool, bro. It's good. Whatevs. Yeah. That's how you. That's how you do. And I want to say thank you to myself for being here. I don't. I've never done that, and I. I want to do that. So I'm looking in the cameras at J.D. you're phenomenal, bro. You show up every time you put all this together, and you just. The charisma you bring. You're so handsome, you're so funny, and that. It just. You're amazing, J.D. so well done. And then to you, the audience, thanks for showing up again. We love you. 10 years running. Thanks for being here, you little retirement plan freaks. What are you doing? Get a life. And lastly, and most importantly, 401k is rock Wendy Eldridge. Thank you for joining our little. Whatever this is. We really appreciate you, and it's great. It's great to run into other people that love retirement plans the same way we do. So it's awesome to do this with you. [1:12:27] Mark: Thank you, Wendy. [1:12:28] Wendy Eldridge: Thanks for having me. [1:12:29] JD: All right, Brandon, play us out with UConn, please. What song did you pick? [1:12:33] Wendy Eldridge: Your life. I would punch it. [1:12:39] Mark: See ya. [1:12:41] JD: Peace out, everybody. See you next time. [1:12:53] Chad: See when he left me alone [1:12:57] Wendy Eldridge: Wednesday. [1:12:58] JD: When they left me alone. Also wrong.