Fee Transparency & Advisor Value with Grant Ellis

[0:00] JD: On Apple tv. Friends and neighborhood or whatever. [0:03] Chad: Or neighbors. [0:04] Mark: Neighbors. [0:04] JD: Yeah. Yeah. Really enjoying it. So we start the show, and we're watching it, and we're about 10 minutes in, and all of a sudden my son's phone screen comes up on the TV screen. And I'm like, yes. I'm like, this idiot. He's. He's. He's mirroring on accident, but it's a Snapchat image of him with the text across the screen. And he's sitting on the toilet, and it says, ran out of toilet. And he's got a toilet paper emoji. Need help. And my wife's hopping up, seeing the message, going to get toilet paper. And I'm still there as a boomer, thinking my kid is mirroring his phone to our TV on accident. No. That little genius just decided, hey, I need help right now. I'm on the toilet. Those two are watching tv. I will take over the TV and let them know I need toilet paper. [0:59] Justin: My first thought was, why does he just text you? But, I mean, that's. What if you're not holding your phone. That's pretty genius, dude. [1:05] JD: I thought it was pretty cool. I was impressed. It's definitely impressed. Oh, just your new toilet doesn't just [1:17] Chad: manufacture it. [1:18] JD: He wasn't on the new toilet. He was up on his ghetto toilet, you know? So, Grant, I know you're into finance and you want people to spend their money properly. I spent 10 grand on this toilet right here. It's phenomenal. [1:33] Chad: Wow. [1:34] Mark: Yeah. [1:35] JD: It's actually. Don't tell my wife, but it's actually starting to kind of annoy me, because when you go in, it plays music, and I'm getting used to the tune, and it lights up like that. It's beautiful. I think I promised this last time, but, Brandon, I'm. I'm going to edit a small video. 15 seconds. To show everyone that tunes in on our next show. Like the toilet in the new powder room. It's phenomenal. [2:03] Chad: Did you buy that after you watched Friends and Neighbors? Or did you buy. [2:06] JD: No, no, no, no, no, no. [2:08] Chad: When they came on with the toilet scene, you were like, wait, yeah, yeah, no brainer. [2:11] JD: Yeah, that's definitely. I do not own a $500,000 watch, but I do own a 10. [2:18] Chad: Got the toilet, though. Yeah. [2:22] JD: Hard pass. [2:22] Justin: Let's not talk in your neighborhood on. On Saturday. I might have to come by. Just use. [2:26] JD: Yeah, please come by and try it out. Yeah, of course. [2:30] Justin: Just gonna walk in the door, do my business, and walk right out. [2:32] JD: It's an experience, Justin. It's an experience in there. Like, not just the toilet. The whole place is. There's no more Zen place to do what you gotta do than my powder room right now. [2:43] Justin: But pretty. [2:48] JD: Here, Let me up. Let me up. We are gonna have a real bad. We are gonna have a really, really bad time. Sir, this. Light me up. [3:03] Mark: Hit me up. You're gonna have a real bad time. [3:06] JD: Hey, Brandon. This is not the intro I was planning, but just looking, are we sure we open this up for everyone properly? Like, can people get in all right? [3:15] Mark: It's Juneteenth, man. No one wants to be here. [3:17] JD: Seriously. [3:18] Justin: Yeah, I forgot about that. [3:19] JD: Okay, I'm tripping. [3:21] Chad: All right. [3:21] JD: Barbecue a day. [3:22] Justin: How come you didn't have the day off, J.D. [3:25] JD: huh? No. [3:25] Mark: Yeah. [3:26] JD: I don't know. [3:27] Mark: I don't know. [3:27] JD: Yeah. We only have so many corporate holidays we can do. I'm a. Well, let's not fret. This will go out to thousands in the recorded space. So those that you showed up today, good for you. I got a treat for you and the people watching the recorded version. What treats? Not the right way to describe it, but. I'm gonna sing a song. [3:47] Justin: Oh, boy. [3:47] JD: I'm gonna sing a song today, Grant, just. Just for you. [3:51] Mark: Okay, I'm putting myself on mute. [3:55] JD: The cowboy hat is gonna work maybe a little bit. I need to turn the mic to the right setting. I need to turn this to on. And as usual, I get extremely nervous, Grant, when I do these songs. Here we go, everybody. A one, two, a one, two, three. Blame it all on their lies or my own stubborn pride. No responsibilities they swear [4:42] Justin: they don't want [4:42] JD: you to know that it's all a big show. The Slyers say their fees will be fair. And I saw the surprise and the fear in their eyes When Schlichter started filing his suits. And the judges will say, you, providers are through. And then you'll never hear me complain. Cause pity eps are disgracious. Rudy accounts are low. Cause high fees Taken all away and be okay. Fuck that one. Peps will lose all their faces. They will soon be gone like a kid's braces. Cause Peps will end with nuh oh traces. No more lyrics. We're done with that. We're done with that one. [5:51] Mark: Jesus. [5:53] Justin: I took a video. I'm sending it to Chad right now. [5:57] Mark: That was decent. [5:58] JD: Decent. Okay, decent. [5:59] Mark: Better than most. [6:00] JD: Well, I was busy today. I was busy. They had lots to do. Grant, this is the moment where you're supposed to say, like, something about Garth Brooks, I was kind of setting you up, but nothing. [6:13] Chad: Yeah, I missed that. I missed the lead completely. Yeah, I did sing with Garth Brooks, so that's a one of my claims to fame. [6:18] JD: I was planning on you saying that. I was like, no, dummy. That's why I did that. [6:22] Chad: I know I was thinking Tennessee, but like I get all the Tennessee jokes all the time. So I didn't, I didn't circle it all the way back to Garth Brook. So I apologize. [6:29] JD: Yeah. Somewhere in your bio I had seen that you had actually sung with Garth Brooks. So that's what motivated me to do that. Justin, take it away. Let all four people know that are here who we have today as our guest. [6:41] Justin: He joins us from one of the great fly to states of Tennessee and he may just be the most interesting man in 401k. He plays guitar and sings at church and thanks for ruining this, JD but he even got to play with Garth Brooks. He has a LinkedIn algorithm mandated selfie down pat. He wrote a book, almost made it on Shark Tank. Founded seven different companies, one of which was a peanut butter company. Lives in Eats, Tennessee with his wife Kara and their two kids, Walker and Texas Ranger. He founded Ellis Retirement Services. Mr. Grant Ellis. [7:09] Chad: Hey everybody. [7:12] JD: Butter jelly time. Let's get right to it. Brandon. You know what we do. Headlines. I tried to go out and see if there's any new and exciting headlines today and I realized that the American Retirement association and Foreign K Specialists and Plan Sponsor magazine, I think they're all taking the day off for the holiday, so didn't get any new ones. But I have to say I got a couple Jerry Maguire moments tonight I'd like to talk about. And the first one is Todd Kading again, Todd Kating from Leaf House has a article out at the national association of Plan Advisors titled Top Priorities for Advisor Record keeping partners for 2025 and beyond. Just saying a little bit of promotion of his Leaf House national conference. But what I did hear from people that attended that was that there was a lot of collaboration happening. He did very what I think, intelligently and strategically invite some of his like competitors in a way that came and showed up there. And so they had some, some honest conversations. And this, this manifesto that he has here is basically talking about the fact that if advisors would pool together and compete less and come to these record keepers or large vendors with consolidated ideas or ideas that they all agree upon that, that, that maybe more evolution could happen in our industry or better evolution than each of them trying to be a solo voice, trying to express what they want or need from these record keepers. Granted, I'm not an advisor. Devin's not an advisor. Justin. I'm not. You are. What do you think about this piece from. Are you familiar with Todd Kading, first of all? [9:27] Chad: Yeah, yeah. Smart dude. [9:29] JD: Smart dude. [9:30] Chad: I mean, listen, it sounds great in theory to me. Right. But in practicality, a lot of these things. Like first of all, how do you even do that? Like, hey, all my buddies, let's get together. [9:39] JD: Yeah, yeah, let's, let's move on this stupid idea. Let's go. [9:42] Chad: No, it's not. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But it's just, it's from a. Like when people are trying to pay their bills and grow their businesses. It's a very challenging thing to do to make kind of industry wide advancements in these things with record keepers. And also there are people trying to do this. I mean this week what the Retirement Advisor Council met and that's. There are groups like this that, you know, Janice Stout and Rene Scherzer and people like that. They're getting together and meeting with record keepers and they're trying to do this. But I think just the majority of advisors are more worried about, you know, where their next plan is going to come from and whether or not they're going to grow any this year or have to lower their fees or whatever. So it just, it's difficult unless large scale. Yeah. Super kind of ethereal, high level. [10:28] JD: You, you referred to Janya, past guest on this show who's now with, with Scott over at his firm. She was previously at One Digital. Renee I believe still over at One Digital, if I'm getting that right. [10:43] Chad: Yeah. [10:44] JD: So maybe we are talking about, or maybe Todd is talking about, hey, these bigger national aggregators coming together to have a bigger voice. But that's not really what he said in the article. But so we'll, we'll move on. I'm not a huge fan of the headlines today. In all honesty. We'll see where they take us. I'm more excited about later in the show. So let's go to the next one. If, if there's something decent A.I. oh, I'm drinking. No one's run the buttons. [11:10] Chad: Oh, Brandon, can I run the buttons [11:13] JD: or is there something decent? Artificial intelligence. I want to talk about it. Grant, you're the guest. I'm going to make you talk more than normal today. Usually I step all over our guests, but artificial intelligence. So the article, sorry, 4k specialist magazine written by Amanda Americans back Artificial intelligent technology. There was a study, there's so many studies these days. And they went out and asked people how they felt about artificial intelligence specifically with financial advice. Is this is where I want to go with you, Grant? Because I don't think we've really had this conversation on this show yet. But we're all enamored. Not all. Most of us are enamored with artificial intelligence and where it might take us in this world, inside our industry and outside of our industry. I think a lot of people, Brandon's got ideas. I think a lot of people when it first came out, did jump to this kind of concept of like, wait a second, is my Merrill lynch guy on Wall street choosing what stocks I should invest in? And shouldn't have really smart supercomputer, artificial intelligence based thing be able to, to do that on a far higher level. So let me ask you specifically about investment choice, like selecting investments. Where do you see artificial intelligence playing a role or, or replacing advisors for that specific task? [12:41] Chad: I think there's, I look at it twofold. One, it's obviously coming and coming fast and I think as they continue to advance the technology, it's naturally going to be a huge piece of what we do from an investment perspective. I mean if you think about right now on, on the individual side, when you're looking AT models and SMAs and strategy consultations and things like that, it's, it's a, a bigger version of that. We run our portfolios through AI to have it check it just to see what it says. We want to know kind of how, how it looks, what, what kind of responses it has to the, the technology from the, from the investor perspective though, of like people putting in like, hey, I'm 54 years old and I want to do this. It can go a long way if you're looking for kind of basic passive portfolio management. But what I find in our clients is it's just there's not a lack of information. It's what do you do with that information? So they're very wary of the output right now. [13:34] JD: I like that. I guess I was even going deeper in that for us to recommend investments. I'll talk within our industry right now, but also just in general in Wall street or even for a mule to decide like what stocks wants to pick and how it kind of wants to diversify among those stocks and the research that it needs to do to make those decisions. It seems to me that artificial intelligence would be in a far superior position to look at all of those things at once and other things to make, you know, just better decisions about what stocks may do well in certain. Which is, you know, that's the thing we're all for now, Grant, putting aside. I'm an asset allocation guy, a diversity guy, diversification guy. You know, I'm not like hounding on how do you find the next hot stock. But I'm just thinking a lot of research and analysis goes into this stuff. When I look at our own industry and I think of, do I ring me up for this video. I forget. Fi360 retirement plan advisory Group, the stuff that Morningstar does. And obviously this is a lot of methodologies and kind of ranking systems, but it makes me just think like, God, could that whole space just completely get upended and you would go to these AIs that are customized and specifically trained in this space. Oh, yeah, sorry. And yeah, I just feel like that's our industry. A lot of big things could change. And again, I don't think that puts people out of jobs. I'm just saying. [15:12] Chad: No, I, I think you're spot on. I mean, okay, right now we, when we are talking to kind of younger advisors getting into the plan space, if you're hanging your hat on your ability to select investments for a 401k plan, you're going to lose. It's just the nature of it. Like, it's probably 5% of what we talk about with our clients. There's enough of everything else that. And the software does that job primarily right now. So it's kind of remarkable, the number of advisors that are still saying like, our value is to pick your investments, it's not. [15:41] JD: I agree with you 100%. But I also understand the scheme or the strategy of telling a prospect what they want to hear, because I think you feel that way because of your experience. But Justin, tell me I'm wrong. If you pulled 10 people on the sidewalk and said, what do you want from your 401k? And one of the options was kick ass returns on your investment, I think that would be high on their list. [16:10] Justin: No, it has to be, right? That's why you're saving. You're trying to get your money to work for you and you want all that stuff. Without a doubt. So, I mean, that's a tough one, right? I agree with Grant that. Yeah, I mean, that shouldn't be the focal point of advisors anymore these days. [16:22] JD: But of course not. [16:24] Justin: You know, this isn't artificial intelligence by any means, but I work with a lot of advisors who are utilizing 338. And I'm saying That in the sense that clients are taking that because, hey, it's doing it for me. I'm not having to think about it. My funds are getting replaced accordingly and whatnot. So, you know, it shouldn't be as scary, you know, to a lot of people as. [16:43] Mark: Don't you guys see it being a coverage gap help, though, as well? Like AI Artificial intelligence can help advisors or even the tools and services that we use help give that advice without having to phone a phone call or without having to. They can use models that say, hey, I'm Devin Wendell. I'm 32 years old, I got two kids. Like, where should I. This is my lineup. This is my. This. [17:12] JD: The. [17:12] Mark: The Americas. Backing a artificial intelligence tells me that there is what we're worried about the most of. I have 15 plans. How do I service them? It's like, well, we can start using this kind of technology to help service those plants. [17:28] JD: That's a. I was about to rip on you as like, that's a bit of a leap right now from what we're talking about, but I think you kind of connected it well there in terms of like a artificial intelligence check swing. Helping participants kind of evaluate their own risk tolerance and. And then to your coverage gap kind of thing. Meaning, like, we could get to thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people with really kind of custom, efficient Q and A back. Oh, that's one back and forth. And so. Okay, but again, I was talking. I wanted to keep it simple today of like, just like financial analytics, you know, like picking the actual underlying investments in the funds and stuff like that. And so, Justin, Your example of a 338 obviously makes a lot of sense. And then, Grant, you did the same thing. Like, that's not the value today of an advisor in the retirement plan plan space. And then I'll ask you this as we kind of go to the next subject. It's probably not even the value of one in the, like, wealth management space either, right? [18:28] Chad: Like, you wouldn't want it to be anymore. You wouldn't think it would be right with the technology we have. But it is. I mean, what Justin's saying is correct. Of like, that's still a huge piece of the world right now is like, oh, we get to pick all your investments and, you know, optimize your asset allocation and your diversity, and people don't know the difference and they're getting sold a model, which is fine. I don't. [18:48] JD: We. [18:48] Chad: We use. We use models too. But it's still unbelievable how much is sold based on picking Your investments. Yeah. [18:56] JD: Well, we'll keep an eye on artificial intelligence that's in that space, because I think it's going to change lots of things, and that's one that I think is kind of a target for it. I know lots. [19:06] Chad: Yeah, y' all need to build something. Like, if I was smart enough or had the capital and the people, like, I'd be building something, some kind of AI, Something to go into the space. [19:14] JD: I. I could go deeper on this. We're doing. We're doing something in that space, but it's a little different. But yeah. Hey, Brand. Thanks. Tune in next Wednesday at 10am Pacific, and I'll talk to you about advisor intelligence, which I'm going to kind of walk you through how you can use it to kind of analyze funds and stuff. Don't tell your compliance department that you came to it. Let's get into important headlines. Kind of the most important headline, I would say, of the week, the month, the year. Fred Reich has really pivoted his Instagram account. I. I feel like there was some shots of the local neighborhood, some things happening that I was obviously paying very close attention to. Grant has no idea what we're talking. [20:06] Chad: No, I don't know. I have no idea what you're talking about. [20:07] JD: The bit is that I'm obsessed with Frederic. I sift garbage. [20:15] Justin: Have you found out where his house is yet just by looking at the photos? [20:17] JD: Yeah, we've. We've triangulated it based on his [20:23] Justin: flowers, [20:23] JD: but that's what I want to show you. Brandon, did you get. Oh. Did I even tell you about the emails I sent you? Brandon, I'm so sorry. Oh, thank you. Okay, good. So he's definitely pivoted to this. Let me show you, like, lots of beautiful flowers. And once again, look at that handsome man up there. [20:39] Mark: So he is retired. [20:41] JD: I know he's not retired. [20:44] Justin: No, you're thinking of everybody. Nevin. [20:47] Mark: Okay, my bad. [20:48] JD: Shots of flowers, bro. Shots of flowers. I was gonna say. [20:52] Mark: I. I was mixing it up, but I was gonna say, like, finally, even though Nevin says that he's retired, he's on the. All these other things. And I was miscommunicating on. On who's who, but, yeah, it's like, okay, finally, you're. You're done. [21:06] JD: I just want you to know that he is not just the most impressive ERISA attorney ever in the history of the world, but he's also an artiste and a photographer and. [21:21] Justin: Oh, sorry. [21:22] JD: We love you, Fred. Reach. Let's. Let's spin the Wheel of ice. I've got an ice I'll drink for whatever. Like. Note to self. Oh nice. Note to self. Next Juneteenth, we will not be having a show. I guess it's not falling on this thing. Okay, before I pound my Smirnoff ice, what I'd like to do is set up our next segment here. I would like to do a potpourri of Grant's LinkedIn posts. Okay. As I mentioned in the pre show, Grant does a very good job on LinkedIn in a variety of ways. I have cherry picked several of his posts just to kick off a conversation. The first one I'm clicking here on my iPad. I don't think Brand's gonna be able to pull them up. Maybe he can, but this was a little while ago, not too long ago. And it's a nice picture of you standing in front of a creek. I noticed most of your posts have a very well thought through selfie of yourself somewhere in the corner, corner. And then he said, planning for retirement involves far more than dollars and cents. Grant goes on to share his wisdom with I work with some extremely happy retirees who don't have a ton of money but live close to family and a creek like this. So life is good. Sometimes less is more, sometimes more is more. The point is you get to decide a plan that matters for you. It goes on a little bit more, not too much more. And it, it actually resonated with me, Grant, in that I used to do enrollment meetings back in the day standing in front of, you know, 50 participants. And I thought it was really interesting because the vendor that I, I remember one particular vendor where the enrollment book that we would hand out and Justin Devin, back in the day when we hung out with people face to face, we would give them all these little books that they can enroll with and [23:27] Justin: I've done my fair share of them back in the day. [23:29] JD: Now on the COVID Got to earn [23:31] Chad: your, Got to earn your bones, man. Got to pass the books out. [23:35] JD: On the, on the COVID of the book were images of golf, fine dining, sailing, beaches. [23:42] Chad: Lots of. Yeah, fancy trip, lots of beaches. Still are all those books still have all of those pictures, do they? Oh yeah. And one of them every time. [23:50] JD: And I would always say to that audience, I would make fun of those images and I would say, hey, look, if your retirement, if your dream of retirement involves some of these images, like, good for you, that's great. Like whatever your dream is, make, make it happen. But I would always paint this other image of like and we're from California, so I'd typically be in, like, you know, some San Francisco office. And I'd say, imagine you move away from California, you go to the Midwest, Missouri or something. You buy a very affordable house by California standards, and you're sitting on its rickety deck with your wife or significant other and rocking in your rocking chairs and having dry mix lemonade from the piece of shit kitchen you just walked out of, and you're watching your dog running the grass on your property. I used to say to them, like, that sounds like pretty good retirement to me. Like, I would enjoy that. Maybe my wife and I are gonna read a book later that afternoon and take a walk down to this little creek that Grant standing in front of and, you know, spend some time together. So I think that resonated with people back then, because my final point was that could be very affordable. So there's a very affordable retirement. The golf and the yachts and all that's very expensive. Maybe you're just somewhere in between. But let's figure out what that price is, and let's start planning towards it. I'm imagining Grant. This is a message you tell lots of your clients. [25:14] Chad: Yeah, it all stems from when we. When we started adding in working with individuals. So I'd always. I've been a playing guy forever. And then five or eight years ago, we added an individual. So I started working with people who were entering retirement, and it gave me that perspective of, like, it's terrifying for most people whether you have a lot of money or not. It's just a very scary thing to go, okay, now whatever I have, I've got to live on this for the rest of my life. So it just kind of stems from. There's a lot of fear around. I mean, I have people that. With millions of dollars who are terrified and people who are broke who are terrified. Right. Because there's just a lack of information of what that looks like. So it's just attempting to go like, hey, if we plan early and we start working, we can. We can figure this stuff out. And there are different versions of, I've got, you know, little country town retirees who live on Social Security and are living the dream. And then I've got rich retirees who are miserable because they haven't set it up well. So it's just kind of trying to connect with that person. [26:08] JD: You know, everyone's favorite rapper, Puff Daddy, I think, once said, more money, more problems. [26:14] Chad: That's right. [26:14] Justin: He did. [26:15] Chad: He did say that. [26:16] Mark: I don't want to get Away from the fact that you're supposed to be pounding ice here. [26:20] JD: Oh, sorry. [26:21] Chad: Oh, okay. [26:22] JD: Well, I found this ice. Devin, why don't you tell us all what your dream retirement looks like? [26:32] Mark: That's a good one. I would say there has to be a lot of golf and hopefully somewhere outside of California. I'm the typical. I like the beach, but definitely don't want to pay California taxes. And so hopefully my wife can move if the kids move. Hopefully the kids move out. We can move out of California, be by the beach and play some golf. That's my in mountain bike. [26:52] JD: And I'm assuming that you mean because you work for me, that you're talking like, what, age? 75, 77? 8. I mean, you're gonna be working for me for a long time. [27:05] Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [27:06] Justin: It's got the hook. [27:07] Mark: I'm handcuffed here. [27:10] Justin: Funny how that lifestyle sneaks up on you. Dude. I was. I was flying back last night from Chad's. You know, we're out there on the farm, and you got like, you can see forever kind of flying back, looking at all the city lights and suburban. I'm like, oh, my God, there's just too many people here, man. This. This looks miserable at this point. You get on the roads, I immediately, I have road rage. It just can't. Comes back on it every time I come back from there. So many people. [27:34] JD: So California, Geez. Okay, we won't get into that. We won't get that. Our Tennessee boy here, he probably looks down at us like all those poor guys living out in California. [27:45] Chad: We go visit you all for vacation. I was in California in March, man. I love it. [27:49] JD: Yeah, you do. And then I can't get into the restaurant I want to eat at because tourists, right? [27:55] Chad: That's right. My only employee lives in California. [27:58] JD: Okay, let's go to the next one. And this one's a little nerdier, a little more detailed, a little more kind of industry driven here. This was a post about two weeks ago where you had ran across a $4 million plan, and you were conducting a review. And we've heard these types of stories before. You were, I think, taking it back. Started to say about the only costs were just south of 2%. You said 1.98 on this post. What I liked what you did is you actually broke it down for the readers. So this is what I mean by the kind of nerdier, more technical side of things. Everybody pay attention. Grant said the average fund expense was about 85 basis points, which to me is That a, is that a, a pretty like reasonable assessment of like a R3 or a, a share class type of thing there? Is that, is that your best guess? [28:53] Chad: It was group annuity. So it was like shadow shares. [28:57] JD: Shadow shares. But that to me looks like a, an R3 kind of a share. Shadow share. Which, which by the way, I think 85 would even be pretty fair. Like it might be closer to 1% depending upon it's all variable like how you look at it, right? Yep. And then you went on for the record keeping fee of 66 basis points. By the way, my son's training at our company right now and, and he's doing a lot of proposals for these guys as an internal support and he's like, what the fuck is this? 85, 66. Like, he's like, this is, that's not true. Like that's, and I said to him, no, no, these exist. They, they're definitely out there. And I wouldn't even call this a huge outlier. I, I, I feel like this is fairly common. [29:44] Chad: Very common. [29:45] JD: Yeah. Okay. [29:46] Chad: So surprisingly common. Yeah. [29:48] JD: 66 for the wrap five to a 338. The advisor's taken 37 basis points. This hit me as. Is this Hancock? [29:59] Chad: I think this is, I think the 1137. Yeah. [30:03] JD: Well, 37 is an odd number and I remember, I remember. Excuse me, not Hancock. My bad. My apologies. Wayne Park, Manulife. John Hancock Retirement. God, that slides off the tongue. That just slides off the tongue. Such a good marketing move. I remember them having this 37. Oh, it does say you had something was paid up in the year one front. Okay, so 37, sorry, I digress. And then revenue sharing, we're going to throw 10 bips back. That's cool. TPA is getting 5 basis points. That's pretty standard by the way, that TPA might have got up. Oh, it did it twice. [30:40] Justin: Oh, sorry. [30:42] JD: They may have gotten a small upfront payment as well at the time and then apparently wasn't enough for, for this one. They need to throw an extra 10 bips on it and you add up all those numbers, you get the 1.98. What the fuck was my question for Grant? Who knows? What do you, what do you think? Well, let's, let's, let's talk about this. So you said that this advisor wasn't even really aware. Like so you're trying to find these fees and what, the incumbent advisor and client couldn't really help you. They were, they were lost. Like you made some comment about even them not not knowing what Their fees were. [31:18] Chad: Yeah, it's, it's the, the point of the post is to point out a few different things. One, it's simply to point out the complexity of 401k fees. This kind of stuff. I always assume when I go to a plan that they're going to have like a good advisor in place and they're going to understand what's going on and they very rarely do. So first of all, it's just kind of showing this is a lot more complex than if you're a wealth manager and you don't do this, then you probably aren't looking for these things. We see it all the time. And then it's just kind of to show the different levels of variance based on the value you're getting. So this advisor, I don't even know if I mentioned the advisor, did I? I don't even know who it was. [31:51] JD: Well, you said there was one, but no you didn't because. [31:54] Chad: Yeah, because they came to me basically saying hey, our, our advisor, we see them once a year, they don't do anything. What, what, what's going on? And I was like, well let's just dig into it. And they had no idea of their fee structure. They'd never benchmarked it. Like everything was set up from when they started with the record keeper. So it was more of just like there's a lot of low hanging fruit with keeping plans healthy. That's not, it's not being done. And it is extremely common that we run into it. So it's, it just surprises me every time, every time I'm like, oh, it's probably pretty good. I'm like, this is trash. It's never been benchmarked, it's never been reviewed, it's never been repriced. Most of the time they don't even know all the pieces to the puzzle. [32:31] JD: I feel a bit guilty because Devin and Justin and my other people on my sales team, Grant, we need to apologize to you right now. Like we are part of this problem. We support a lot of these. What did you call this advisor? A wealth advisor swimming around in the 401k world. Something to do. [32:53] Chad: Like, like, no offense, right? [32:55] JD: I mean, but I'm just telling you, like we go out and we try to find these people sometimes and try to prop them up and support them and, and, and if, if this guy would have sold a plan with us and, and I don't know about the 37 BIPs, how big the plan was at the time, but I, I would have said to this guy. Okay, look, we're here to help you. Your vendor's here to help you with different questions, but you're going to be making 37 basis points. So you have a job to do. And because you're getting paid revenue. And so even if you're a novice, lean on your support system, lean on us, and make a commitment to yourself to meet with this client, put together some reviews, analyze how things are going. Like, I don't. I think what you do is phenomenal, and I'm obviously a huge advocate. Everyone who tunes in the show live tends to be pros at this stuff. But I also think, and I'd love to hear your opinion, that someone who passed their Series 6 understands investments, is a good person and wants to build their 401k business. And because they don't have any, they're a wealth manager. I mean, it's not rocket science. They're not going to be as good as you. But if they actually just apply themselves, I think they can get it done. [34:11] Chad: You agree with me or think I agree with you. 100. [34:13] JD: Okay. [34:14] Chad: To me, it feel it's painting big, broad brushes, right? Of like every. [34:17] Justin: It's. [34:17] Chad: I have no problem. I couldn't care less whether somebody's a wealth advisor or not. I actually am with you. I want them to do well. The bar, the bar is so low, though, and for somebody to be like, we can't get them to return our calls. [34:28] JD: Like, if this guy's taking in 15k a year at this point. [34:31] Chad: And so I'm with you, I'm like, if it's. You don't have to be an expert. You call JD and his team and call your. Your wholesaler and go, I don't know what I'm doing. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And then show up and call them every once in a while. So it's more of the frustration, it feels lazy to me of like, you're not even making an effort here. Like it, you know, if you want to take it another level, find some DCIO wholesaler who will give you access to Fi360 and run a report. So it's more of like, do something. Like, I don't understand the reality of [35:04] Justin: that, though, especially when it comes to wealth advisors, at least in my experience. And Devin, I'm sure you can, you know, would say the same is they don't make a lot of money on these things, you know, compared. [35:14] JD: Obviously that's not the case. Right? That's not the case. Right. [35:17] Justin: Here by any means. But I mean that's their mindset. Like, dude, I don't make anything. I make 37 bips on this versus, you know, the 1% that I get on the well side where I got a million, you know, whatever with this client. And they take these plans on largely because they don't want to lose the [35:30] Chad: wealth line, you know, or because they're trying to mine it for new wealth clients as well. [35:35] Justin: I mean that's the smart way to do it. But don't be lazy about it. Like you're saying that's always a struggle. And JD said we're. [35:40] Mark: Yeah, right. [35:40] Justin: Unfortunately we're part of the problem. I don't, I don't really view this [35:43] Mark: as part of the problem. [35:43] JD: I mean it's, I mean I'm joking, right, I'm joking when I say that. But I mean I would hope that we like to Grant's point, provide we're not here to talk about us. So. [35:53] Chad: No, I think it's a valid point though. Like you all are there to support advisors who need help. I think just having a little bit of humility and going like I don't know everything. Like we're still doing that. Like we can't know everything. So the ability to go, hey, who does know more than me? And to ask them to help you understand maybe a basic framework for what you should be doing. And the first answer is like maybe call them once a quarter and see how they're wonder. [36:16] JD: Do you wonder in the real world if this advisor laid his or her head on their pillow like a year ago and, and had that thought run through their head of like I'm making 15k on this thing. Like I am, I do, am I doing something wrong? Like is this, I feel guilty, like what's going on? Where to Grant's point. They should have won, woke up that next morning, made a call to their third party administrator or the record keeper and said hey, can you look at the fees on this thing? And you know, I know we sold this three years ago. Like I just want to make sure that they're prudent, they're appropriate, maybe even they check them out. Like it's not that hard to do. So I'm with you. I have very little. [36:55] Justin: A lot of plans though too, dude. I mean, I mean, you know this, especially in this like sub 5 million dollar market, you know, we, we kind of take advantage of those who have done that for so long. It's a great low hanging fruit for [37:05] JD: us, for anyone that's Listening in. Grant, what do you, how many do you remember? Let's, can we guess 30 participants here. I have no idea, like how many heads. Yeah, yeah, let's, let's assume it's like 30 or whatever. Like what, what should. This thing should be priced at $4 million plan. What's not, should be. Here's another fun. I digress. Here we go. Ready for this. How funny is it, Grant, that the way this industry works, and it worked this way in the past IS advisor finds 2 million dollar plan. Advisor reaches out to record keeper because record keeper bought them a cup of coffee a week ago, whatever. And this is, this is the. Not the pro, right? Not the 401k pro. And says, hey, record keeper, I found this 2 million dollar plan. It's $2 million plan. It's got 100k of flow, whatever it is. And then Advisor goes, what should my comp be? And record keeper says, you know, 1 in 37 or whatever the fuck, I'm just making a number. But nowhere in that conversation yet have they asked each other like, how many fiduciary review meetings are you going to do? Are there three locations or one location? Do you plan to meet with the participants, like one on one? How often as an industry we just spit out a number to them, like. And that's what made me think I was about to ask you what a $4 million should be priced. Like. And it's like there's some variables there, is there not? Like we can't just spit a number at it, but we've been doing that for 20 fucking years where we just say, oh, four million dollar plan, 20 bips, 25 bips. Right? Like somewhere in that, you know, let's go 15 to 25. It's like, I think we need to know a few things first before we apply that number. [38:54] Chad: Yeah, I mean, yes and no. I think the reason we go there so quickly now is because it's so easy to keep it in range. Like there's a range of what that should be. And that's the first thing you can make a phone call. I could call that record keeper and be like, no, man, we're not doing this. Like, cut it all out. And they would overnight because they know they're going to keep the plan for a decade. So, yeah, I agree with you. It's just one of those. It's, it's interesting to see because it's a red flag of if the pricing's that out of alignment, then that means most likely everything else is too. [39:22] JD: So if you knew price, if you knew price. A four million dollar plan right now. [39:26] Chad: Yeah. [39:27] JD: With 30 parts. What do we think, Devin? Justin, chime in. Grant, what's the comp Comp? [39:33] Justin: Probably in the 30 to 40 range. [39:35] Chad: Yeah, 35. 40. [39:36] JD: Okay, 35. [39:37] Mark: I just think that it depends. I think that it depends. I think the race to the bottom is the most annoying conversation that I have with advisors because if you have a good advisor, do good and help people that aren't saving and get them to save, then is it worth that cost? I mean yes, there's a range in 30 to 40 basis points, but if you charge 50 basis points and you're having quarterly meetings or weekly phone calls or you're trying to really lean into the employees and get them to save, then you're worth it. That's what I have. [40:09] JD: Of course I love the higher end scale. But what do you think Voya says when you call their internal and you have a four million dollar plan and you're not a very experienced advisor, what's your comp Grant do you think 25? Yeah, or less. [40:25] Chad: They're gonna try to price it low. [40:26] Justin: I mean God, we've seen guys take it, take 25 bips on startups. [40:31] JD: Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna push, they're gonna push you down because they want to win the plan and they care a little less about, about for sure. [40:41] Chad: Well, and they know that if they do get the plan, they're probably going to keep it for a decade. Like there's an annuitization factor too of like you get the plan, you mind the plan for assets and you keep it for a decade with doing very minimal work. [40:52] JD: Well, let's talk about the record keeper fee. So $4 million plan. What's a typical record keeper rap fee? Like 35 or something? [41:02] Chad: I could get, I could probably get it down to 20 to 25, which is 25, which is wild to me. I tell them all the time I don't know how they're making any money because the record, the reality on this [41:12] Justin: one too is, I mean no one's knocked on this door yet. So as we see all the time with record keepers like, hey, I'm not going to say anything. I'm going to keep making this money until it's a problem for sure. [41:21] Chad: But I had to come proactively to you and say we would like you to pay us less again. [41:25] JD: I want to write a new proposal right now. I want to compare the 1.98 to what think we think we would write it in a prudent world right now. [41:32] Justin: And I mean, Grant's thing says 1%, I think between 1 and 1.25. [41:36] Mark: Yeah. [41:36] JD: Right. I was gonna go. [41:38] Chad: And the software does that. I mean, it's not like we're doing that from our knowledge base. We're benchmarking it with software, each piece. And like our fee. Talk about the race to the bottom. And if you can't do this all the time, but we try to be high, we tell people that, like, I've been doing this for 20 years. If you want the cheapest, I'll send you down the street to Jimmy, who just got his six and like, have fun. But if you want to do it right, we run in the 75 percentile range on our fee structure every single time. So we show them where it's at. And all the other pieces, we just wanted to land somewhere in range. So it's not. We're not trying to drive it. You kind of use the example of like, the DOL doesn't say be the cheapest. They say, know what you have and the value you're getting and how you got there. And so that's, you know, there's, there's wiggle room there, but there's just. [42:21] JD: It's, it's not funny. It's good to hear you say that because we hear lots of people say. Because we tend to walk in circles of the people that know what they're doing here a lot. [42:31] Chad: Yeah. [42:32] JD: But then my sales team also works with these people who don't a lot of times. And so for you to have the confidence to say your fees are higher takes experience. It takes a service model, which we're going to talk about in a little bit based on your most recent podcast, which I thought was phenomenal. We'll get to that. But for a lot of people out there, and I'm sure you know this, Justin, Devin, Chad and Mark live in this world of race to the bottom. [42:58] Chad: Sure. [42:59] JD: Spreadsheeting each other, everyone trying to get the fees down. Record keepers. Coming back to us as a, as a third party administrator in our 50th year of business. Trying to tell me to, like, sharpen my pencil. I'm gonna shove my pencil up your ass. Like, I like this is constantly happening. And so most of the industry struggles with matching their value with their price. But that's for another day. [43:28] Chad: Listen, I love that topic because I, I am a former tpa, so, I mean, I know your world well. [43:34] JD: Is Grant drinking with us? Does he have something No, I was [43:36] Chad: just about hotel beer right here. [43:40] JD: You've got like four or five penalties. You gotta. [43:42] Chad: Why? I don't even know the rules. So how about I get a penalty for rules? [43:45] JD: That's how this game works, Grant. [43:47] Chad: Arbitrary penalties. [43:48] Justin: The show going on for 45 minutes and has a prompt you to be like, hey, what does that mean when [43:53] Chad: you're like, I didn't want to stop the flow and be like, new guy doesn't know what you're doing. [43:58] JD: Well, if we had a normal audience, they'd be tearing you apart right now. [44:01] Chad: Like, boy, will you tell me what I'm doing wrong now so I could adjust it, Please. [44:06] JD: You have to learn. You got to learn the game as [44:08] Chad: you go, all right? [44:10] JD: No acronyms or initialisms. You cannot say. You say artificial intelligence, not the two letters. [44:16] Chad: Okay, Gotcha. [44:17] JD: Got it. [44:18] Mark: Supposed to be educational. [44:19] Chad: Gotcha, gotcha. I will, I'll try. [44:22] JD: No, I mean, the fee thing is very interesting and I actually kind of want to save that for your podcast, which I want to talk about here pretty quickly. I want to get to one more of your LinkedIn posts, which I thought was really good. You were sitting in a small office. It had a little wood kind of panel and this archaic 1980s phone. The phone, a little wood table in the corner. And by the way, I don't know if you know this, but I took over my father's company. I'm a Nepo baby. He started it 1975, and we had many of office rooms that looked like that with matching carpet and the whole nine. But he made a very strong statement to me, which was. And I think for this one, I'm just going to read it like, this is a friendly reminder that millions of companies, millions that might be, maybe, but a lot, are highly profitable and printing money and are the opposite of high tech, high speed. They don't have fancy offices with coffee bars, ping pong tables, and their websites. I love this one. And their websites look like they were created 20 years ago. That's a fact. Their owners aren't on LinkedIn. They don't do daily team huddles. Their computers don't have cameras because they're on the floor and they're only slack. That's a software that they've ever heard of, refers to their fishing line. So what about those fancy 401k websites and financial wellness apps? You know, this big tech push that we're making in our industry, they might as well be digital paperweights, says Grant. Toss them in. File 13. What works for these companies like this, sitting around table, face to face with the employees, having conversations, answering questions, solving problems. Don't become so reliant on technology that you forget how to sit with people and solve their problems. The people thing is great. I love that. What I thought was more impactful for me reading it was I think we forget how many like non sexy owners of businesses are making good money and fly well below your radar of like what, what we envision a modern day prospect. They run a, a warehouse. They're, they're, they're making little widgets, you know, out of who knows what. Even me. I'm a company In California, 35 employees, you know, you, I would fall into that category. And I saw a YouTube video that called these people the stealthy wealthy. Meaning like these people are making seven figures a year. You just don't know them. They're not out in public, they're not on LinkedIn, they're not doing whatever. And I think what you're saying here, Grant, and I'll let you speak, is we're focusing so much on like a solution for high tech, we forget that these people don't give a shit about that and maybe we should pay more attention that this is still a thing. You can still pretend it's 1985. Right. And go sell. [47:33] Chad: Yeah, I mean it's, it's the combination of our industry is really good at telling everybody what they need. Right. And it's like you need this financial wellness and apps and all these things and they're all great tools, all have a place. But just, you know, every little town, which is most towns outside of all the big cities, the companies don't run like that. And it's, it's going into a company like that and saying like, let's get on a zoom meeting. They're like, what are you talking about? We don't do that here. Right. If you want to meet with us in person, there's a factory behind there. And so when I look at it, it's like, what are we, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to solve? And if we're trying to help people prepare for retirement, as cliche as it sounds, then you, you can't just shove tech down their throats. You've got to be able to go and do the hard work, which we talk about all the time. That's why I post pictures of like, man, we drove down this dirt road and went into this hot warehouse to go talk to the people. And I think a little bit of it is kind of the, you know, financial porn, if you will, on LinkedIn of like the way everything looks and like wanting to look cool and high tech and high speed and the reality of it, it's really hard dirty work sometimes. But it's the way that you impact those companies is by going in and sitting with them. Most of them don't, other than the owners don't have money and being able to just have conversations with people. So is tech necessary? Absolutely. Is it the end all, be all? No chance. [48:48] JD: Well, that's what I wanted to ask you is let's assume you and I had mutual clients and they had their office looked like that. And be honest with me, would you be upset with me if I told you? Because I had, I have tons of clients like that. I had them. If I forced those clients to do modern day things, I. E. There was a point when I took over my dad's business where I had to say to all our clients, hey, you will now submit your census in this format, electronically through this secure file upload. 100% of you, no exceptions, no outliers. And I caught a lot of shit for that. Yeah, I, I currently. This is gonna sound crazy. Ready for me, the tyrant. I don't accept paper checks anymore. I have a modern day technology system that allows you to pay us your monthly fee or your quarterly fee or your annual fee. I don't want you mailing checks in the mail to my office that then human beings have to open, look at, apply them to your account balance. There's technology that solves that. Some of my older clients might say, I don't want to do that J.D. i want to write a check. That's how we roll with our little 1980s phone in the corner. So what would you say to me as your third party administration partner? Would you be like jd, come on man. Help out my old people? [50:08] Chad: No, absolutely not. Because to me there's a little bit of a distinction there. It's like how you run your business operations is completely up to you. Same thing on the advisor side. If you want to be the person or whoever that's going, we are tech only. This is all we do. That's fine. It's just to me, it's when a client, the way we get clients most often is we just need somebody to help our people. And if I'm signing up to help your people, I could make that call of saying we only do tech. But yeah, so yeah, you're on the [50:37] JD: advisor side and you're just saying, hey, just because Voya's got some new widget that's not gonna win me business. What's going to win me business is getting there and face to face and doing which I. [50:47] Chad: Well, and even more so than that, what's going to actually have an impact on those people? That's because, listen, you see enough people retire with no money and it's depressing. And they're not looking at apps like, have you been on the websites recently? They're all, I mean, it's just, it's just noise in their heads to be able to sit down for 10 minutes and be like, hey, if you do this, you're going to have this when you retire and you're going to be able to pay yourself this. And they're like, nobody's ever told me that. [51:12] JD: Can I ask you? When I was younger and more of an asshole, I still have a lot of asshole in me, but an advisor used to tell me that, that they're all about face to face. I would tend to ask them, okay, like, how many clients do you have and how many. What's the head count of those clients? And then I would try to do the math of like, what does that look like for your year? And you're nodding your head in agreement. Like, can you actually pull that off as, as one human being? Like, and a lot of times I'd challenge them. They could. Not that you can't. You're one man, one woman. You can't run around and meet with all these people, Grant, face to face. [51:51] Chad: No, it's a great point. I think you have to have your service model nailed down. So this. I, we. There's a client we can't take on with our model. Like, because, like, somebody goes, hey, we want to meet with every employee face to face once a month, every, like. So we have a very, very stringent model that builds in certain aspects and we price it out. So going back to what Devin said about like, our price variation, this is all going, coming into account based on what the client's looking for. And there are times when we say we can't do that. Like, we're not, we're not able to. But we, we're using the basic framework of the model to go, this is what we can do for this price. If you want more, this is the price. And then there are limits where we just can't do it. So you're exactly right. You've got to be profitable, you've got to be able to scale, you've got to be able to grow your business and do all of that. So there's a limit. [52:38] JD: I don't have time to go through them all. But you actually made a post kind of relevant to that where you talked about, like, under 500 employees. 500 plus how you kind of say your business model. I'd actually like to go to the podcast for a second. I did not clip an audio like I'd wanted to, but I did listen to your most recent podcast. And the takeaway that I want to bring up to kind of start this conversation for Justin and Devin and yourself and everyone listening in is you said, like, a lot of advisors come to you for, like, advice. Like, hey, how do I. How do I, like, get good at this 401k? Actually, no, how do I sell this 401k stuff? You know, how do I build my business? And you said something that I thought was actually really, really cool. And I'm a firm believer in this, and I think this could be a great conversation. They come to you wanting to know, like, what are the tricks to sell? Like, how do you prospect? How do you market? How do you sell and close buy plans? Where should I be looking? What do I do? And then you had one question for them in the beginning before trying to help them, which you're very courteous in doing, is like, okay, tell me about your. Your service model. Like, what. How do you uniquely, like, service your clients? Like, what's what? Tell me your business model. And they're like, okay, well, we'll. I'll figure that out once I get my clients and build them up. And I. You had me to the point where I was in my car driving, going like, no, no, no, let's build that first so you have something to talk about, something to be proud of. I would almost say, even if you haven't even done it yet, I would just love to see the blueprint. Like, I'm new to this, but here's what I'm gonna do. I've done all my homework. I. I'm. I'm passionate about this industry. I know how this all works. And I'm going to treat my clients that have 30 employees or less like this. I'm going to do this many fiduciary review meetings. I'm going to come and do education. By the way, I have an expertise and a passion for target date funds. So I really want to, like, analyze your target date fund, whatever it is, what makes your business model valuable, exciting, worth, you know, paying attention to. And, And I guess to your point, I'll let you Talk because it's your thoughts I'm stealing from you. Is seems to me that if you'd put that in place now, you actually have something to go sell, which is selling. Did I pick up on all that? Right? [55:08] Chad: Because yeah, it goes back to what you were all talking about before with the calling the record keeper and getting the price spit out. But that, to me, that's an industry training problem, because that is cart before the horse. [55:19] JD: Cart before the horse. [55:20] Chad: What are we trained on when we get into this industry as advisors? How to sell. That's it. Sell, sell, sell. From day one. And it's usually, you know, it's usually like, well, you have 90 days, friends and family, go drive 100 GD, 100,000 GDC or you're fired. And never or almost rarely do you talk about, like, how do you take care of clients? And so it's just a conditioning of. That's just how our industry is, unfortunately. And so when you flip that on its head and go, well, yeah, like you said, I think the word is valuable. And it doesn't have to be rocket science. Honestly, talking about artificial intelligence, you could type it in and be like, I want to be a mediocre 401k advisor. What should I do? For real? Like, you don't have to be the best. [55:55] JD: No, that could be your pitch. Hey, I'm the mediocre guy. [55:58] Chad: And guess what? It's mediocre. Also, my pricing, it's me. [56:01] JD: Right, right, right. I might buy that. [56:03] Chad: We've just, we've this whole thing. Not a lot of the industry is just inverted. And it is about revenue first. Figure it out, how to deal with the client later. And for. The hard part about it is I had the advantage of being able to play the long game early in my career. So I didn't have this, like, quota that I had to hit in six months. So I get it. If you've got that quota, you've got to hit that every single year. [56:28] JD: But Grant and Justin and Devin, I want you to listen to this. But still, if I've got a quota to hit, I need to develop a strategy. And what I want to do is I want to maximize my close ratio. You know, every time I get an opportunity to talk to a potential client, a plan sponsor, I want to make sure I've got my, you know, my game ready to close that thing. And so my point is, it's not how you talk to them. It's not your swagger, it's not your confidence. It's what is Your product, What are you offering to them? Get really good at building that. I think if you're exceptional, you'd make it, like, creative, you'd make it a little unique, you'd make it true to yourself, whatever. But that's going to put you in a far better position to close that meeting than running around trying to get meetings without an actual service. It seems simple, but, Justin, tell me I'm wrong. Most people don't have that figured out. Or if they do, they spit out like the classic thing, like, oh, I'm gonna review the funds and check the fees and like, shut the up. [57:39] Justin: The less experience, focus on that. But I, I, I combat your, your comment a little bit. I do agree. Having your service model figured out and kind of being able to, to communicate, that is, is key. But I do think it's a swagger. I mean, we've always talked about that. It's being you, being genuine. Right. Having your brand that will set, will set you apart. [57:59] Chad: Yeah, I got no swagger, man. This I got. [58:01] Justin: You're being modest, right? [58:02] Chad: I got gen. I got genuine down pat. But, like, I'm, I tell people, you know what my sales pitch is? You want me to give you my sales pitch? I'm a terrible salesperson, so I'm not going to do this. Well, but this is what we do. Would you like to work with us? [58:14] JD: You know, it's so funny, Grant. [58:16] Chad: It's crazy. Like, crazy. [58:17] JD: I start my meetings the same way if. Because these guys sell now. And the joke on the show is, when's the last time JD sold a plan? But sometimes I'll have to get involved with a, with a current client. [58:31] Chad: Yeah. [58:31] JD: And it'll be kind of a sales moment. Right. Like they're gonna change record keepers or something. And, and I'm being totally honest. When I'm on that zoom or whatever, I'm like, look, I'm gonna this up. Like, I don't, I don't do this every day. I, if you would have saw me 20 years ago, I was smooth, I was confident, I had my together. Like, I'm gonna botch this because I'm just not a salesman right now. And to your point, Grant, I think people don't, I think you're actually, you're being a little bit of a bullshitter right now, Grant. You know when you say that, that they love that because it puts them at ease. It puts them at ease. [59:11] Chad: Like, I'll push, I'll push back a little bit. I, I have, I've always struggled with self Confidence. So I don't I, it actually say that. And I've just now gotten like, no, you are good at what you do. Like I've had to work on being like no, I'm good. Like I, I, I'm good. And it's okay to tell people we do a good job for our clients and our just, it's just not natural for me. And so it's self deprecating but not with a plan. Yeah, I wasn't, yeah, it just comes from a core. Right. But I was, you know, I grew up in the swagger finance world, man. I was on the, on the desk internal like the whole thing. What tie do you wear? And we all our training was around like how to type the email. Right. You know, it was the words and the, and I must and every. [59:51] JD: How about the presenters, I would teach you to like make sure you sit this way, make sure your, your chest is out. Like make sure you have eye contact, [59:59] Chad: take a position of authority and raise your chair higher than them and like [1:00:04] JD: repeat their name, repeat their name to them. You know, listen more than talk. [1:00:09] Chad: And I'm a processor and like an analytical guy. So I'm sitting there trying to create this sales equation in my head of like okay, do that and then say this and then look in their eyeballs and then shake there and it's horrible. [1:00:20] JD: Well can I please reiterate then it works based on every time. Based on your post. Yeah, what it told me and I'll elevate it one extra level here is it told me that if, like if you had prepared what your service model is, what the product you're actually selling, that's going to maybe not give you swagger, but it's definitely going to help and it's going to give you confidence and it's giving you, you know, something to focus on. I would add to that that when I was sitting in parking lots in a suit and tie, no beard, my hair was short and I had cufflinks on my little things and I had to, and I had to go in and present what always gave me confidence as I stepped out of that car to walk into this strange business. And I want everyone to listen to this, Dev and Justin and all the advisors you work with. I did my homework. Like I put in the hard yards of where I was going, what their current plan was, what the cost structure was, what the investments were. Were their target day funds good target day funds or not good target day funds? Did they have a fixed account with like everything I could do? I Poured my, my soul into it. And I would say to myself before I walked in, actually, jd, these people are lucky that you're coming in here because you're a good person, you care, and you've actually done your research and you're about to show them how things work, you know, in this, in this industry. There I am. And. [1:02:01] Justin: Oh, go ahead. Sorry. [1:02:03] JD: I felt like not only did it help me, made me do a better job in there because I felt like. I'm sure this is very cliche, but I wasn't there to sell. So cliche. I apologize, but it's true. I was there to like, show these people what was in my brain. [1:02:21] Chad: It's not cliche, man. Like, you're talking about you sitting in the car, like, talking to yourself. I do that to this day and because it's freeing for me because I. The sales culture just makes me feel gross and I get pressure. I literally tell myself I'm here to see if I can help them, and then it's in their hands and that's it. And so I go in. It's like, blah, blah, blah, let's talk all through it. It's not. I can't control whether or not they work with me. I can help them as much as I can for that day. And then guess what? It works. And people like to work with people on a takeover. [1:02:50] JD: How do you feel about doing the hard yards of like knowing your before you go in? [1:02:54] Chad: I do an unbelievable amount of research. Yeah, yeah. It's the same thing. It's just a. It's a very. Like, I had to shift away. This is what almost maybe like the peanut butter company, all the things was. Because I'm being told that only what you wear and only the way you type your emails and positions of all that crap is how you sell stuff. And then I had to learn from other people. No, no, no. There's a different way. Just like know everything, be better than everyone, work harder and be a good human. And people like that. And it's like, oh, well, magical. That's crazy. [1:03:24] JD: And, and Justin Devin, don't you think that's the recipe for Chad's success? [1:03:29] Justin: No, it absolutely is. I was. What I was going to say before I thought you were done talking was Chad and I, before I started work for pdc, I was in doing sales in another company. [1:03:38] Mark: And bring up. [1:03:39] Justin: We would always have. Oh, we would always have calls on our way to meetings and stuff. [1:03:45] Mark: And Chad, we've kind of both got [1:03:46] Justin: to this point at the same time and it his mindset was exactly kind of where you guys have gotten to in this conversation was, hey, look, I've done my work, I know this client, I know everything about them, and there is nobody better to be sitting in front of them right now than me. And that just gave him a whole. Once he got to that point, I [1:04:03] JD: mean, that's awfully like, there's a lot of self confidence there. [1:04:06] Justin: That's what I was getting at least. [1:04:08] JD: Maybe there's. There might be a few people that are better. But you're saying, but I'm damn good at this, you know. [1:04:14] Justin: Yeah, but the mindset is, is more than half the battle, right? [1:04:18] Chad: Yeah. And I'm. You can. And knowing that, like being okay with it, you can do everything right and still lose. Oh, yeah, that was hard for me early on. I was like, wait, I'm better than all these yahoos and you can still lose. [1:04:28] JD: Last thing I want to do is give, like sales advice. Brandon always wants us to do this on this show. And by the way, to some of the comments there or all those meetings I'd go to, I would always be with an advisor. It's just back in the day, it was kind of this mode of like, okay, advisor, you're going to sit right over here. I'm going to do all this shit. I'm going to cue you a few times. You're going to talk about investments, you're going to talk about this, that, and we're going to close this together. And that advisor would look at me and be like, okay, we got this, bro, let's go. Like, they'd also be in the parking lot. But so when you say, why is JD as a third party administrator talking about target date funds and guaranteed investment contracts? Because my advisor wasn't prepared to deal with that. [1:05:09] Chad: Your advisor didn't know what they were talking about. [1:05:13] Mark: Yeah, but on that point, how do you get a green new young advisor that is a wealthy advisor to have that confidence? I think the thing that I struggle with the most is talking with the clientele that we do talk to and, and trying to get those advisors to be confident in what they know and what they're going to pitch and everything that they're going to say and the value that they bring. Even though they've done two retirement plans, [1:05:38] JD: you literally just, you literally just laid out Grant's podcast. So everyone go listen to it. It's the 401k playbook and it's the, it's the most recent one. And you just said what you just asked what he said, which is you want the confidence put together, your approach first. Understood. [1:06:02] Mark: But what if their approach isn't to win 40 retirement plans, their approach is to win one with their uncle or whatever, to help out their family or whatever. It's not I need to land 10 plans and be this retirement guru. It's I just need to know enough to win. [1:06:18] JD: Oh, now you're being, now you're being an idiot. Are you telling me we have advisors that they're, they're coming to us going, I want you to help me sell this one plan and I'll never be back again, dude. [1:06:31] Justin: It happens. [1:06:32] JD: Well, to that point, I don't have time to waste my brain on that. [1:06:38] Chad: Like I will say, Devin, though, I think you bring up a good point. There's an element that nobody wants to hear. That confidence comes with reps and years, right? I mean, that's part of it too. It's like you can't fake some of that stuff. So you gotta, to me, it's when I was talking to whoever's younger or whatever, it's just like, you gotta be you though. You can't act like you're the 35 year veteran when you're not. So just own what you have and if you need to concede on pricing and be the hardest worker in the room, right? That can win. [1:07:07] JD: You said before like, mediocre, I'm the mediocre guy. Mediocre price. [1:07:11] Chad: But yeah, like I, but like I work my ass off for you. [1:07:15] JD: That's my thing. [1:07:16] Chad: And I will do whatever and I will learn and I will go talk to JD and his team to figure out what I'm doing. And like, and then you do that for 20 years and then you're confident. [1:07:25] JD: But my, my, I would counter you a little bit, Grant, to say that like, even if you don't have the swagger and you don't have the confidence, I mean, to your point of saying like, I'm a shitty salesman to start your thing and I'm start to keep, sorry to keep repeating my thing that I'm so passionate about here. If you've done your homework, you know, if you've studied for the test, even if you're tripping over your own feet and you're awkward and your brows sweating and whatever, you can still show them that you've done your homework. And I think that can be very endearing to someone who's trying to make a decision that sometimes people that are great at sales and have swagger and confidence, it's too Much. It's gross. Like, people don't like it. I. There's a lot of wholesalers for record keepers. We can name names later this year that I hang out with. I'm like, you're gross. [1:08:22] Chad: You're like, off a movie. [1:08:24] JD: Yeah. [1:08:24] Chad: What are you doing? You're like a cartoon character, man. [1:08:27] JD: You're too. Tone it down, you know, you're too confident. Okay, we'll move on. I, I wanna. You know what? Devin's got to get to a car thing. [1:08:37] Mark: No. Are you sure it's with her family? Yeah, Rachel's with her. [1:08:41] JD: Okay. [1:08:41] Mark: Rescheduled to next month. [1:08:43] JD: Let's play a quick. Let's play a quick game and then we'll head out because I know Grant's sitting in a hotel all by himself, [1:08:49] Chad: and so I got nowhere to be. Yeah. All right. [1:08:53] JD: Well, Grant, you know, I'm an innovator. You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I, I, you know, I told my dad when I was four years old to start Plan Design Consultants, our third party administration firm. He followed my advice. I have since partnered to to start an AI company called Waze. Check it out at Waves Dot, you know, oh, what? [1:09:15] Justin: Brandon, who's doing this? And. [1:09:18] JD: And I have a design company called 75 Studios. Y' all can check that out. But another thing I invented on my own with nobody else's help, is the totally original Noer dope game. [1:09:46] Mark: This is the only reason why I ever want to be on this show is because I want to get you boomers your no for dopes. Just to have a conflict with you guys because some of them are so off. [1:09:56] JD: I like it. I like that. [1:09:57] Chad: Impressive. [1:09:58] JD: I like that Mark's position quite well. We have a small problem with this game. I have been getting Grant. I've been getting really drunk on this show in the past, and, and so I forget what no dopes I've done before. So I've been drinking a lot of vodka in my free time and. I love that one. So I apologize if I've done this one before, but this one resonates with me and Grant. In this game, we always go to you first, the guest. And basically how nope or dope works is obviously if you think this thing is dope, you're giving it a thumbs up. If you thumbs down, it's nope. And then you tell us why. I absolutely love chicken wings. I was vegetarian for almost 10 years. 10 years, I think. And the only thing I dreamt about was chicken wings. You know, hot chicken wings, buffalo chicken wings. How do you Feel about boneless chicken wings? [1:11:05] Chad: No. [1:11:06] JD: No. Why? [1:11:07] Chad: It's a fake substitute for the real thing, man. Yeah, it's like the kid version my 10 year old eats. [1:11:13] JD: What's happening there? Yeah, it's weird. It's not. Justin. [1:11:17] Justin: I love good chicken nugget, man. [1:11:19] JD: Chicken nugget. [1:11:22] Chad: If you go full nugget and call it a nugget, I'm in. But if you try to it up and call it a boneless wing, like, no, that's not. Wait. [1:11:28] JD: You bring up a great point. [1:11:30] Justin: I just don't just get my food. I just want to throw it in there, man. [1:11:33] Chad: Yeah, it's disgusting. It's a whole thing. [1:11:35] JD: But you guys both bring up a great point. It's just a nugget. [1:11:39] Chad: With buffalo, we call it something different. [1:11:42] JD: Yeah, it's not a wing or meat [1:11:44] Justin: out of it, man. You're filling up quicker. [1:11:45] JD: Well, this pizza joint, my buddy has a theory that millennials were raised on, like, chicken nuggets and this is why [1:11:55] Chad: they just absolutely love buffalo wings and [1:11:58] JD: every kind of wing and just that [1:12:00] Chad: I feel like it's gonna get weird [1:12:01] Justin: my chicken back saying that comment. But it is what it is. [1:12:06] JD: Devin, if you're at a restaurant and you're given the choice, and I tell you that they're both really good, are you going bone in or bone out? [1:12:16] Mark: Depends on the rub. To me, dry rub has to be a wing sauce. Boneless all day long. [1:12:25] Chad: You know what it really depends on, right? Are you with your friends, like, dude friends, or are you with, like your family? If you're with dude friends, you're bone in all day. Because it's like the manly thing. If you're with your kids, you can get away with a boneless wing. [1:12:37] JD: Okay. [1:12:38] Chad: That's what it is, man. It's posture. [1:12:39] Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Mine's. Mine's pure sauce base. [1:12:41] JD: If it's. [1:12:42] Mark: If it's dry rub and baked, it's got to be a wing. If it's. If it's saucy, some Korean barbecue or something like that, I'm all in some crazy parmesan. Yeah, I can throw them in real quick and eat them. [1:12:57] Justin: Our hockey team. [1:12:58] Chad: That's fair. [1:13:00] Justin: We always go to Buffalo Wild Wings. Yeah, we've. We've named our team name the The. Because we suck at hockey. The Buffalo or the word. The Buffalo. Mild Wings. But all of our names on the back of our jerseys are our flavors. [1:13:12] JD: Like, wait, but you're the Buffalo. Mild wings. [1:13:14] Justin: Mild wings. Because we said hockey. But you know Dave, you know his his name is Asian. Zing. [1:13:22] JD: Yeah. [1:13:23] Justin: Okay. [1:13:23] JD: Yeah. Ooh, that's a good one. Let's save that for. Let's save that for another episode. What would you want your name to be of the Buffalo Wild Wings names? Yeah. I don't know what the was I gonna say about wings. I forgot. We'll move on. Okay. Brandon, I sent you a picture today. I was literally driving my car today, and I took a picture, and I thought, nope. Or dope. Cream soda, alcohol. Look at this truck. I took this picture this morning on my way. Hey, Grant. Just like you, I love my wife and my wife and I were driving to go have coffee together at a nice little place by the beach. We were chilling in her G Wag. We didn't take my Lambo, but. But I looked at this, and I thought, vanilla cream ale. Cali cream it. And then look at the tagline. It's like cream soda but for adults. Nope. Or dope. [1:14:24] Chad: No, no. There's too many things going on there. It just sounds like too many. It sounds like you're trying to mix too many worlds, you know, and it's a stomachache waiting to happen. Like, that's not. [1:14:32] JD: Thank you, Justin. I looked at that. I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna throw up in my mouth. [1:14:37] Chad: Yeah, that's gross, man. [1:14:37] Justin: You think of, like, health probably is. I mean, you don't mess with the classic for one, but two, I hate cream popsicles. [1:14:44] Chad: I was about to say, who's drinking cream soda anyway? Yes, people do. They do, apparently. [1:14:49] JD: Kids, according to this ad. Kids. [1:14:52] Chad: And then you miss it as an adult, and so you put booze in it and drink more. [1:14:56] JD: Devin, you're a kid. You're a kid. [1:14:59] Chad: Soda. [1:14:59] Mark: I. I would think a boomer. [1:15:01] JD: I did not jump generation. That's very true. What. What's the comment, Devin? Cream soda and mixed with alcohol. [1:15:18] Mark: Yeah. [1:15:18] JD: I was so. [1:15:19] Mark: Nope on this until I actually had it. Yeah. The issue is, is that you can only have one. Like, you can only have one or two. But it is. It is good. But I'm still a. Nope. It's not something. Beer's beer. I want a beer. I want. [1:15:36] Chad: Yeah. [1:15:36] Mark: Is that like this? [1:15:37] Chad: What kind of alcohol is. It Is alcohol. Yeah. [1:15:40] JD: Okay. [1:15:40] Mark: Yeah. [1:15:40] JD: I don't want. I don't want to phase it. I don't want to make this less fun. I went and looked it up, and I literally gave you misinformation because I wanted to put another image up. And it just. It had a nice beer and a clear glass, a pint glass. It just looked like a good beer where I was imagining something much different. So it's just them trying to make a foofy beer with whatever. Which, by the way, I'm also nobody. [1:16:05] Justin: They. I mean, they're capturing a market. I mean, think about how many flavors are out. I mean, you have Sunny D, you have Ashland, which is. [1:16:13] JD: No, but this is like, I don't want to Reese's Pieces ale you. [1:16:19] Justin: I don't disagree with you, but I'm saying it's selling. [1:16:22] JD: Yeah. [1:16:23] Mark: Who drinks Guinness, right? Like, I'm not a Guinness person. That would be a nope on Guinness. [1:16:28] Chad: But peanut butter. [1:16:32] JD: Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter. Peanut butter on my chocolate. What? Together? Reese's peanut butter cups. Real milk chocolate. [1:16:45] Chad: Delicious peanut butter. [1:16:50] JD: Crunchy peanut butter cups topped with chopped peanuts. [1:16:53] Justin: He's a Doc Brown, man. He's already crazy. [1:16:56] JD: I. I assumed Mark would be here and that he would, like, make a Reese's Peanut Butter joke. [1:17:03] Mark: And so, like, he'd make something like, [1:17:05] JD: hey, I put my chocolate in your peanut butt. And I was just ready for that. [1:17:08] Justin: That so. [1:17:09] JD: Oh, yeah. Well, it's perfect. And by the way, that was genius. To the chat bar. I love that Tristan's getting involved in. People are commenting. Bill Hackler says, heir to the throne has spoken. Grant, that's my son Tristan, who says booze is booze. He's 21 years old, and as I mentioned earlier, he's our internal sales consultant. But his email signature at Plan Design Consultants, he says, you know Tristan Carlson, plan consultants, internal sales consultant and Air to the throne. [1:17:44] Chad: Nice. Nice. Well played. [1:17:47] JD: All right, one more, one more. No per dope. And this is me personally, apparently in California. Like, well, I get this all the time, but people knock on my door trying to sell me. So I'm in the middle of a zoom. I'm talking. It's trying to do business, and ding dong, knock on the door. What is it? You know, I gotta run over there, and it's some fucking dude with some name tag on trying to sell me solar or pest control or fucking who knows what. And I'm getting to the point. I don't think so, asshole. I'm getting to the point where I want to put the little sign. I want to go down to Home Depot and get that little, like, placard that you put on your door with sticky says, no soliciting. So, Grant, am I just a boomer now? Is this a stay off my grass kind of thing? Have I lost it? [1:18:43] Chad: No. I don't care if it is or not. I'm the same way. I don't. The, the most anger I have in the world is when somebody knocks on my front door and they shouldn't be. And I live in Tennessee. Memphis, Tennessee, where that's not something you should do. So. No, I'm with you. I think it's horrible. And I usually either hide or tell my wife. [1:19:00] JD: Just ignore them. [1:19:01] Chad: Yeah, you just hide. [1:19:02] JD: By the way, I've done that before. How long do they stand? [1:19:05] Chad: A long time. You gotta be. Yes. Yeah, you got to be in it. You gotta go to a closet, maybe. Or I, I. If they don't look scary, I'll just tell my wife she has to talk to them. Like, I can't do it. It's bug spray guy again. I can't do it. [1:19:15] JD: Justin, you want to hear my last two moves when I open the door? [1:19:20] Justin: Absolutely. [1:19:21] JD: I, I open the door, I look at the guy, he goes, hey, I'm Tom from whatever solar. And I go, hey. And I look at my, my door and I go, right here. This is where I'm going to put the no solicitation placard. When I get it, I just don't have it yet. And I stare at them. How do you feel about this? [1:19:39] Justin: I mean, I'm, I'm definitely a nope. But at the same time, guys, we're in sales. We do the same freaking thing just over a phone, right? So that's kind of hard to have that, that outlook on it. But yeah, overall, I'm. [1:19:50] JD: You're a solicitor. [1:19:52] Justin: Is anyone getting massive. You know that. Basically the version of that. But all through your text messages now, I'm getting so many. [1:20:01] Mark: DMV really thinks that I'm behind on my registration. [1:20:04] Chad: The DMV is the new major scam. Yeah. All the old people are getting hit by the DMV scam. [1:20:09] Mark: Yeah, it's a plus 63 area code, so it's somewhere in Europe. It's probably the Philippines or something. [1:20:14] Justin: You know, I got one today that said it was. Was a 943 or something like that and said, hey, are you, Are you back home yet? I'm like, I was, how the hell is this? [1:20:23] JD: That's so weird. [1:20:24] Justin: Phone number I get. [1:20:26] JD: Mine's different. Like, I get, I get hundreds. [1:20:29] Mark: You have money, we get it. [1:20:31] JD: No, no, no, no. I was going a different way. I was going to be like, I get hundreds of these. Like, check out this porn site. Like, it's cool. [1:20:39] Justin: That's the algorithm I'm working right now, Bud Grant. [1:20:42] JD: Remember the old remember? The old Grant doesn't remember, but I'm telling him, you guys remember the old Chad Johansson back for anyone listening. And this is probably, like seven years ago. There's Chad and. And he goes, I don't get this Instagram thing. Like, what's the deal with it? All it is is, like, golf and chicks and bikinis. [1:21:05] Mark: We're like, chad, that's yours. [1:21:08] JD: Yeah, that's your algorithm, bro. He's like, I don't get it. Why is it just golf and chicks and bikinis? Like, so weird. [1:21:17] Justin: Okay, every now and again, you just got to search for some other. [1:21:19] JD: Just in case. Yeah, right. Reset it. All right, let's move on to the. The very last subject LinkedIn post from Grant, and he's once again a selfie. Always a selfie. That should be A. Nope. LinkedIn post with a selfie on there. But I like it. I remember I said I'm a huge fan. Quote. Oh, good. I'm so glad you aren't wearing a suit. End quote. A new friend slash prospect told me at a meeting this week. I'm not a suit guy anymore. Says Grant, every once in a while, you'll find me in a jacket. But rarely. But it has nothing to do with the right or wrong clothes wear in a meeting. It's just me being me. God, Grant's so genuine, isn't he? He just. [1:22:05] Chad: I know when you read it like that, in that voice, it sounds. [1:22:08] Mark: Attitude, right? [1:22:09] JD: It's just me being me, people. I used to try and figure out what prospects wanted me to wear, say and do what's. What is the secret to closing more sales? [1:22:18] Chad: It's like you're reading a children's book, man. [1:22:22] JD: Wait, here's the motivate. Here's the Tony Robbins part. Then I let it all go, and I started trying to be myself, whatever that means. My business float. Okay, now here's what I want to talk about. You're in this picture. You're no longer. And we've done fashion on this show before, and I think it's interesting. Here he is wearing a polo. So I'm going to challenge you. You're saying you're not the suit and tie guy? And we all saw me earlier in the suit, and I've mentioned the cufflinks many times over the past 10 years. Isn't the polo or the golf shirt kind of the new costume for a financial advisor douchebag guy? Isn't this the new suit? Aren't you just doing the new version of the old thing? [1:23:08] Justin: Like West Coast. [1:23:11] JD: Go ahead. [1:23:12] Justin: West Coast, Manhattan, Tuxedo or whatever they call it. Is that what you're calling. Is that what you're getting? [1:23:16] JD: Oh, well, I'm just saying. He's saying. He's. I'm giving him. Now he's saying, hey, I'm not wearing a suit, but he's wearing this little polo. And I'm kind of thinking like, look, unless you live in New York or Boston, I feel like we're here in California because we're kind of biased. Like, I think suits have, are pretty quickly kind of eroding away in financial services. Not completely, but, but, but a lot. And now I'm kind of being an now on purpose and seeing like. Yeah, but the, the golf polo or. The polo to me is now just the new costume of I'm a financial advisor kind of guy. Why not something you're following what everyone else is doing. Why not do something a little different? How about some nice dress, slacks and a nice dress and sweater Or a cool. What do they call the shirts with little buttons right here? A Henley. A Henley or something like. Grant, you're still being a financial guy in your little polo. [1:24:15] Chad: Yeah. So I agree with you partly. And you're missing the point of the post. That's the whole thing. People, people, people fixate on the clothes. Part of it has nothing to do with clothes, man. It has to. Our entire conversation being around, like, dude, just be you. I don't care what it is. Don't. The other stuff doesn't sell. Whatever they're telling you, you have to wear and say and do, just do whatever you want and own it. That's the whole point of it. And I grew up in private school in the south, so polo is me. I feel that's just what I wear. So it's not really. [1:24:46] JD: I don't care about Grant. [1:24:47] Chad: Yeah. [1:24:48] JD: I am in San Diego. I've been surfing since I was 7 years old. I have flip flops on, dirty shorts, and I didn't take a shower today. [1:24:57] Chad: Right. [1:24:58] JD: I can't just be me and go to a meeting. There's certain rules you have to apply to this. [1:25:05] Justin: You can't, you cannot play the, the devil's advocate right now. [1:25:09] JD: I'm saying his comment there was. There's, there's reason here. There's rules there. There is society. [1:25:16] Chad: Absolutely. I'm not wearing sweatpants. Right. But that's what I mean is like this, the context of this is like when I was younger and thinking of, like, what I had to wear to show that I Meant something I could provide value. Right? It's. It's underneath the surface of, like, man, if you want to wear a suit, wear a suit. I don't care. If you don't want to wear a suit, don't wear a suit. Like, but it's just. Don't listen. Don't listen to the talking heads that say you have to do it a certain way. That's. [1:25:42] JD: Justin. Justin, what are you wearing to live meetings these days in Orange County, California? [1:25:48] Justin: I'm a big fan right now of the quarter zip jeans and, you know, nicer shoes. Yeah. [1:25:55] Chad: Little. [1:25:56] JD: Little collar quarters in. [1:25:58] Chad: Yeah. Because we're managing. I mean, we're finance. The bro vest. I was gonna say, are you gonna pull out the bro. [1:26:04] Justin: No, I will never do the bro bus. But I just. I. I spoke at a conference last week, and it was business casual was the dress code. And so that's. That's what I went with. And I show up and people are still confused. They're still. [1:26:17] JD: This is casual is lame. I hate. [1:26:19] Justin: They're still in suits, they're still in ties. And I'm like, I was a person like that. [1:26:23] JD: I'm like, what the. [1:26:26] Chad: If you're the guy wearing the crazy clothes, like, you're making a statement in and of itself, right? Like, it doesn't. It's just like, quit fixating so much on, like, well, if I don't wear this, then I don't prove that I know what I'm doing. [1:26:37] Justin: Like, no. Be comfortable. [1:26:38] Chad: Yeah, you don't want to be a slob. We're managing money. We're managing money. [1:26:41] JD: Yes. Yes, that is what my son said. So he was sitting with me earlier while I prepped. And, Devin, I'm gonna go to you because Tristan's piping in about Birkenstocks, and look at that. I brought this up to him and he goes, dad. And this wasn't like a dad looking up or to, you know, it wasn't a son looking up to his dad. It was more of a. Like, hey, dad, aren't. Aren't we in financial services? Like, we're talking about people's money. Like, I feel like we should show up with a little respect, you know? And I was kind of like, wow, it's kind of cool to hear a 21 year old say, like, let's step it up. And that's kind of where I was going with the slacks, the dress shoes, and I love your quarter zip, Justin. But my son Devin, tell everyone when he shows up, the office where he's Wearing work clothes. But what's on his feet? [1:27:33] Mark: Well, yeah, he was in burks and we were going to see an advisor and now looking at, looking, looking back at it, [1:27:41] JD: the advisor would have taken [1:27:43] Mark: it totally fine because the advisor was a surfer. He was, you know, kind of laid back. But he was in this 11 story, [1:27:49] JD: hey, don't apply Birkenstocks to surfers. [1:27:52] Mark: Because I'm not, I'm just saying, like the more laid back kind of aspect of San Diego of, you know, still on the 11th floor or whatever overlooks the beach. And he would have been totally fine with it. But my first initial reaction, and this, this rings true back to Chad and when I was going through and learning from him. And it's almost like one of those things that you don't want to put yourself in this situation when they're already turned off automatically. Yeah, right. Because of something that you wore. Did. So if you go with the most neutral thing possible. No, someone in a suit and tie is not going to get mad that you showed up in a polo. Someone that's in a T shirt is not going to get mad that you showed up in a polo. When you show up in Birkenstocks, it's like you don't know you're playing a 5050 game on that advisor of will they like working with you guys, no matter the words that are coming out. And I, I do think that what you wear. It's so funny that you said that because the Birkenstock day rings in my head all the time. Like, I show up to work now with flip flops on and if I have to put on shoes, I will. If I don't have to, I'm wearing my flip flops. That's who I am. [1:28:59] JD: You guys have a flip again. You guys are in San Diego for sure. [1:29:03] Mark: For sure. [1:29:04] JD: Because I saw the Boston comments, which is very true. Go to New York and Boston and I feel like you time warp back 20 years in terms of financial fashion. But two things to close it out. One, my dad as again, Nepo baby, taking over the company. My dad used to make comments about my work attire and I would look him dead in the eye and go, I'm not taking fashion advice from a fucking old man. Like, literally, like. And so sometimes you have to let the youth kind of tell you, yeah, [1:29:39] Chad: old people, old people can go themselves. Why did you. [1:29:44] JD: I'm going to live forever. Sometimes you let the youth kind of drive fashion and you kind of follow along. Now to close it out and to Grant's Post. And not to get all Tony Robbins, but I went from this right here, short hair, cufflinks. And what eventually happened is because I've been dragged from San Diego back up to San Francisco to take over the family business. And so that took me out of the water surfing. Then I said, hey, I can surf here, San Francisco, Pacifica. Let me get back in the water. And my old self came back to me. And to Grant's point, I actually started to get some confidence in the business a little bit. And my hair grew and my beard grew, and I ditched the suit. And Justin, I love that you said the quarter zip, because that was kind of My thing, like 15 years ago, was the quarter zip. And. And I started to show up to some very serious meetings. Glass conference room attorneys, eight of them sitting around. And I've got it. We used to give PowerPoint presentations back in the day, and. And I had to plug in and put up my shit. And I had a beard. I had blonde, you know, scraggly hair. And I got two minutes into my presentation, and one of those attorneys kind of ripped on me for being a surfer. So to your point, Devin, I showed up to that meeting and I gave myself a bogey. Like I had a headwind, like they didn't like my look. Okay, but. And this is to wrap this all up, but because I had done my homework and because at that point, I had. I had confidence in what I was doing, I feel like that actually was my advantage and that the people that I was up against all looked the same. But to Grant's point, and it's cliche, cheesy, I was being true to myself, and that resonated in that room and hard audience. And we won that plan. And that because I was my surfer self, not trying to be a Wall street financial guy. And that's where I want to end. It is. I think that's what Grant's trying to say. That's what Grant's trying to say is, hey, find your truth. And that's going to help you out. But everybody kind of knows that. You know what else? Let me be sure. Fits. Everybody knows it, but a lot of people lack the confidence to do it. And that's why we all look like clones in this world, you know, like, that's why we all look the same. [1:32:30] Justin: So you got to find your true north, Right? [1:32:33] JD: Thank you to the two people that showed up for tonight's show. We appreciate it. Clearly, I've learned not to host a show on Juneteenth. Juneteenth so got it. Understood. [1:32:46] Justin: Happened again for seven years. [1:32:48] JD: Our next show will be on July 4th. Tune in. And so thank you to you guys, the dedicated people that showed up to watch the show and thank you to the thousand views that are now watching this on YouTube x LinkedIn, wherever. Thank you to Justin for being here. Thank you to Devin for filling in for those losers at the member guest. We'll find out next time how they did. Thank you, Pankaj. I love you too, bro. And most importantly, thank you to Grant for joining us from Nashville on the road for sharing all of the your posts and the efforts that go into your post on LinkedIn so we can see a little glimpse into your life, work, life balance, etc. It feels great to have another 4 1K Pro join our community, be here on this show and I thank you for that. [1:33:52] Chad: Yeah, it was a blast. I appreciate you all having me. But I will say now, anytime I write a post, I'm going to hear your voice like a storybook child talking like, oh, now look at me. And so I'm ruined. My posts are going to change dramatically from here on out because of your voice in my head. [1:34:07] JD: I mean, there's got to be genres of your art. [1:34:11] Chad: Yeah. [1:34:12] JD: Maybe the selfie and everyone like you can mix it up. Let's do something a little different, you know, I don't know what that is. [1:34:18] Chad: J.D. maybe not worry about me, brother. Let's just let it ride. I'm doing me. I'm just doing me. I'm living my true north, you know? [1:34:25] JD: Okay. Okay. You do you, bro. You do you. It has been another episode of Retire Alex. We are the Retirealex and we are. Don't let anyone tell you differently. We are changing the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. For me tonight, it's chardonnay. I won't tell you what it is because it's too expensive. You can't afford it. Brandon, play us out. Yes. This is where Grant runs out on stage. [1:35:01] Justin: Grant, how did you sing with that? [1:35:04] Chad: We got sang in a church. We had a lot. We were in Nashville, so we had a lot of people that were in the industry and we would get called in to sing on albums from time to time. You'd get a call, like middle of a Tuesday, and they'd be like, can you be at Zack Brown Studios at 9pm tonight? And so they would never tell us who the artist was. We just had to either go or not go. And that night I was like, well, it's Zach Brown Studios. Of course I'll be there. Show up at 9. Twenty minutes later, they release the call, and then Garth Brooks walks in and he's like, hey, everybody, we're gonna record my new song.