Magazine Strategy & Advisor Marketing at Excel Conference

[0:00] JD: Live from Las Vegas. It's not really live, but it's live to tape. It's live here from the Excel 401K, the advisors conference. We have the editor in chief of that lovely magazine that Mark is reading over there. John, can you quiet down so I can read, please? [0:18] Chad: You know Mark has a hidden book in there, right? Like he's not actually studying or reading industry related topics. [0:23] JD: Not only doesn't know what the word fiduciary means, he has trouble reading. [0:26] Justin: I was looking for the pictures and I didn't find any. It's a lot of words in there. [0:29] JD: There are good pictures in there. Welcome, John. Thank you. [0:32] Chad: Thank you. [0:33] Mark Palmini: On the show with us, you know, Carson, Letterman, retire. Hollis, I'm on the couch. You're committing career suicide right now, [0:42] JD: John, because do you know that today we had our first fan incident. We had a fan come up and she asked for our autograph. All of us on a retire Huluk's hat. Shannon Maloney. Am I getting that right? [0:59] Mark Palmini: Yeah. [1:00] JD: So shout out to you. [1:02] Chad: Thank you for making us feel good. [1:04] JD: Appreciate that autographed hat is devaluing every year, so you probably want to get rid of it. [1:08] Chad: She said she's putting it next to her award. [1:10] Justin: I think it's already on eBay. [1:12] JD: John. Mr. Media Juggernaut, have you had anyone ask you for autographs? [1:17] Mark Palmini: All the time, man. Since I gotta, you know, put my head down, get the glasses on. Just move quickly, place to place. [1:22] Chad: He's got to stay. He doesn't even sign anymore. He just stands. [1:25] JD: Every time as you walk around, put them on blast. Like every episode, we have got the beer of the episode. So Chad, would you pump these out and then I'll talk about it because this one's kind of close to my heart. [1:36] Chad: And we do have a special beer for our guest and a special beer for the rest of us will be debuting itself shortly. [1:45] Mark Palmini: So I finally quit drinking after years and years of having a blast. And I've been waiting forever for the retireaholics invite. And you guys invite me after I stop drinking. Come on, you're just messing with me. [1:55] JD: We support the response responsibility of that we are drinking Waialua wheat. And when I go to Maui, which I do each and every year, if I go to the bar, this is the beer. I ask if you go to the bar. [2:11] Chad: So when will you be having one of these in Maui? [2:13] Mark Palmini: Never leaves. [2:14] JD: In about a week. Okay. So cheers. [2:16] Chad: Cheers, guys. [2:17] Mark Palmini: Cheers. Your health. Yeah, thanks for joining us. All right. [2:20] JD: In addition to the Waialua Wheat. We have extra kinky, an extra naughty fusion of hints of mango, blood orange and passion fruit. 8% alcohol. The word of the episode today is financial. If any of the retireholics. John, you're excluded from this. [2:40] Mark Palmini: I want in, man. [2:41] JD: If any of these retireholics say the word financial, after that last one, you will drink from these little pink cups here. [2:49] Chad: I think we should see if John likes us or does not like us. So every time he says it, we all have to take one step. [2:56] JD: Ooh, that could be scary. [2:58] Chad: So you might sabotage us and just send us. [3:00] Mark Palmini: You guys will be hammered by the time. [3:01] JD: That could be very scary. [3:02] Chad: Be careful. That means. That means that could be a problem. [3:04] Mark Palmini: So you're drinking something called kinky. [3:06] JD: What kind of a show is this? It's a little creepy, but we are in Vegas. [3:09] Mark Palmini: Alright. [3:10] JD: First thing I like to dive into is as I flip through the magazine and I usually do it in a digital sense, but I've also done it in the hard copy sense. I see a different vibe going on. I see a little bit of an edgy thing. I see it in some of the photos, I see it in some of the headlines, some of the slang. I see some fun involved there. Is that just me reading into something that's not there or is that something you guys are actually intentionally trying to do over at 401k spectrum? [3:39] Mark Palmini: I love that question, J.D. you know, usually I get, well, the magazine looks so great. You know, it's just a really nice almost lifestyle look to it, which we do by design. But you know, my second question is, well, do you read the thing, man? You know, I write it, so that's what I want to hear about. What about the words? Yeah, so that's fantastic. But no, exactly what you're saying. It's true. It's a little bit more of an edgy vibe. I mean, we want to have fun, right? We want to make sure that we get people engaged. God knows in today's media environment, you've really got to do something different, you know, here we are, right? You guys decided to drink a bunch of alcohol and try to have an edgier voice, right? So. But it's definitely got us noticed, you know, out there in the zeitgeist. We're trying to take a non traditional voice within the magazine. I always say it's more like Huffington Post than it is Washington Post. You know, in terms of just how it's structured, not necessarily the politics. We try and stay. [4:27] JD: Those are other media published things. Mark, you're out there. No, I totally agree. If I'm. If I'm reading about safe harbor or fiduciary rules or financial wellness, I'd love. [4:42] Mark Palmini: Nice. [4:44] JD: I like to be entertained a little bit, as I do. [4:47] Mark Palmini: That's the thing, right? We can have fun with this stuff. At the same time, you don't want to be superficial. You don't want to disrespect the content. We're talking about people's livelihoods here. We're talking about the retirement hopes, dreams, survival even. And so it's deadly serious topics. And I know that that's what you guys do. Look, you have a blast here, right? You have a lot of fun, and it really engaging. But at the end of the day, the content has to be number one. It has to be something that's. [5:08] Justin: I feel like I've heard chad say that 17,000 times. [5:12] Chad: For this show, I'm the content nerd. Got to make sure something hits. [5:15] Mark Palmini: I ripped it off because I watch you guys religiously, and I was like, I'm gonna just throw a chance. [5:19] JD: You know, here's a thought that I stumbled upon. It's not just a magazine. You have all kinds of other deliveries or channels. It's digital, is hard copy. You guys do CE credits. You did a big awards thing at this conference. You're the media brand for this conference, this national conference. You do videos on YouTube. I mean, there's several things happening here. And if I'm an advisor out in the world, I may check in daily to learn about things. I'm assuming you guys are trying to make my practice work better. You're trying to teach me things, obviously, CE credit. You're trying to. Back at the home office. Is that something you guys are talking about a lot? Like, whereas we got to give them value, we've got to help them improve things. Is that a constant conversation? [6:13] Mark Palmini: That's exactly what it is. Yeah. So, you know, our mission is like your mission, you know, overall, we all benefit. If we, you know, pump the overall industry and we make other people look good in the eyes of their clients, it's going to come back on us. It's. So we want to make sure that we're multifaceted, multimedia in terms of how we deliver information, how we deliver content, all sorts of different ways that you can access that, as you mentioned. So absolutely, that's kind of our number one job directive, if you will, is what can we do different? That's engaging. And just like you guys are involved in behavioral economics, so are we in terms of trying to get people to read. It's really behavioral science in terms of how we get eyeballs on what we need to. I mean, a lot of it's what you would think, right? It's subject line optimization. It's really making it kind of cool, you know, something that's going to draw people in. [6:57] JD: Clickbait. [6:58] Mark Palmini: But it's not though, right? Because at the end of the day, once they open it up, it's got to be something that you got to deliver. Right. [7:04] JD: Or they're going to start in our genre. Yeah. You don't want to go there and then there's no value. [7:07] Mark Palmini: You got to stop trusting. You'll go back. [7:09] Chad: Folks are busy, and so you need to have some of that value. So how do you. How would you see an advisor engaging with the magazine? Is it daily checks like that? Do you think it's. [7:20] Mark Palmini: Well, we'd love that, right? [7:21] Chad: Hard copy order. I mean, how would you see folks engaging? [7:24] Mark Palmini: There's some bifurcation, if you will. We still got a lot of older guys that are actually reading the publication. Right. [7:29] JD: There's a lot of older financial advisors out there. [7:31] Mark Palmini: Can you believe that? [7:32] Chad: Oh, yeah. [7:33] Mark Palmini: Good catch. [7:34] Justin: Gotcha. [7:35] Mark Palmini: Hey, John, real quick, just kind of off the cuff here. How many subscribers would you say you have right now? We got 39,000 for the. [7:44] JD: He's making fun of me. [7:45] Mark Palmini: Yeah, I know. He doesn't even care. Great question. Thanks so much. [7:50] JD: You just crushed us last night. Sherry, Fitz and I battled on how many email subscribers we had, and we're nowhere near you. So John gets the leaderboard. [8:01] Mark Palmini: Okay, so back to it, though. [8:04] JD: Can you email me that list sometime later? [8:06] Mark Palmini: Yes, I will, absolutely. So 39. [8:08] Chad: Sorry, you're not on it. [8:09] Mark Palmini: He doesn't have your address. So. John. 39,000. So 39,000 for the actual subscriber base for the magazine itself. And then there's about 41,000 on the email Tuesday email that goes out. [8:23] Justin: You upped it a little bit. [8:24] Mark Palmini: Now it's at 41. JD, I can't. [8:26] JD: I'm putting you on the spot. And if you don't have the answer, it's not a big deal. Since we're going through these numbers, do you know, like, ballpark how many retirement plan advisors. I know that's a loose term. Are in the United States? [8:38] Mark Palmini: Yeah, no, that's a good, really good question. We had to actually go out and define that, you know, what we felt, because there's no designation. You're not going to get really a CFP on a widespread that can Tell you that there's no license that specifically designates who these guys are. So we really struggled with that. But we partnered with a private company who kind of does that kind of thing, and we feel that we've got a pretty solid list for qualifying questions that we have in order to get the magazine. We think that we've narrowed it down, so we're reaching kind of a very targeted, very specific audience, niche audience, if you will, that we feel is pretty strong. But, you know, you're absolutely right, J.D. that was probably the biggest job that we had when we were launching, was just trying to identify who it's going to go to. We had to weed out a lot of people we did not want. [9:18] JD: Is there a number? Do we know? No. I'm curious for myself. [9:22] Mark Palmini: I don't know. I think it's a lot less than you would think. [9:26] JD: Yeah. [9:27] Mark Palmini: You know, I think translates to opportunity, you know. [9:29] JD: Why I want to know, you know, is because when I get very low YouTube views, it just validates that for me. I'm like, oh, there's not that many guys out there. [9:37] Mark Palmini: That's what it is, not the content. [9:39] Chad: There's 12. [9:40] Justin: There's 12 and still not good. [9:43] JD: I forgot to tell Sherry. I'll bet you I crush her. In terms of unsubscribed. [9:47] Mark Palmini: Look, Fitz is crushing us, all right? So, I mean, you know, don't. You're in good company here, for God's sakes. [9:52] JD: Well, thanks for that information. I'm gonna. We're gonna cut to a break now. Here's the thing. Usually this is the time of the show where we do some hijink. We play a game. We. We put Chad's hand in a mousetrap. Justin slaps his butt with a wet towel and all kinds of things. We're going to go with a mature, responsible approach today while we drink beer. At this conference, we learned about Mission Made Gifts from Ross Marino. And instead of us trying to tell you about it, we'll cut to the piece where he told us about it. Right on this couch. Hi, Ross. We are Here at the Excel 401k, the advisors conference in Las Vegas. And the Advisors Conference. And at the keynote, you talked a bit about the Mission Made gifts. Is that correct? The name of it? Can you share more with our advisor audience what that is and why they should be interested in it? [10:51] Ross Marino: Sure. Happy to. Thanks so much. Appreciate you guys having me on here. So our company started our own nonprofit a few years ago. We made the decision that instead of just doing the food Banker for half a day or maybe donating some money around the community, we'd shoot a little higher. So we started a non profit called Mission Made jewelry. And we go into developing countries where there's just a lot of nasty things that happen from global poverty. We buy items, we import them, and we sell them here in the US and we've been doing that for a few years at events and on the. The website had a great response to that. Earlier this year. We decided in our practice we wanted to do something a little more focused for our clients. We do birthday cards, we do Christmas type events, but we wanted to do something where we could connect with them even better. So we thought what a better way to do it than to create a gifting program specifically for advisors and their clients. So here's what we came up with. It's about two minutes where you can put together an entire gift, whether it's a new car someone purchased or they have a vacation home, they just retired, they took on a new job, maybe they moved, got a new home. There's all these events that take place out there. We wanted to create something where we could send them on the spot. A gift that was thoughtful, that was unique, and that was simple to put together. So we did it with Mission made gifts. We've launched it, been using it in our own branch for about six months, and now we've made it available to other advisors. [12:11] JD: It's the 2.0 of Christmas card birthday acknowledgement kind of thing. Right. And doing good for the world at the same time. [12:19] Ross Marino: Well, part of it is that people don't expect it and that's important. So when someone says, we just bought a new car and we've done this twice already. So we had two different key fobs that we sent out to people who had purchased a new car. Both of them sent emails saying thank you so much and five or six pictures of their car. [12:35] JD: Let me, let me wrap that. [12:37] Ross Marino: Excited. [12:37] JD: Let me wrap it with this. We talked with Sherry Fitz last night and her concept was be unforgettable. And with your clients, this is a great way to do it. [12:46] Justin: Yeah. Thanks so much. [12:47] JD: It is advisors. Yeah, check it out. Take a look at it. And Ross, thank you very much for joining us. [12:53] Ross Marino: Absolutely. Website missionmadegifts.org Mission made gifts. [12:57] JD: There you go. Thank you, sir. [12:59] Ross Marino: Thanks, guys. Appreciate you having me. [13:00] Mark Palmini: Thank you. [13:01] JD: So the history of our industry in terms of buzzword words, Chad and I believe that we kind of started with fiduciary was a big thing. Then fees now it's like retirement readiness, financial wellness. [13:15] Chad: Boom. [13:15] Mark Palmini: Dang it. [13:16] Chad: I was waiting for that. [13:18] JD: You had to say your retirement readiness again. I'm gonna throw up. But I know it's relevant now you're just gonna throw. [13:23] Chad: Folks are leveraging these topics. They have been for years. When I first started in the business, everybody was on fiduciary, and I feel like that's true. Transitioned a bit. Still incredibly relevant, obviously, but it's moved on. Now the folks who are doing a great job helping their clients is big around participant outcomes, which was the award that you all provided. The best advisors ranked by participant outcomes. And it's been retirement readiness. And so I think what we'd like from you, especially since you see a broad range of topics and industry from [13:54] JD: the journalist perspective, exactly what have been the big things. And if you say retirement readiness, I'm gonna throw my beer at you or something. No, I'm kidding. [14:01] Ross Marino: Yeah. [14:01] Chad: So what's next? [14:02] Mark Palmini: Well, here's the thing though, right? I got to push back a little bit because, you know, we're so sick of fiduciary. We're so sick of financial wellness, you know, because we always. [14:11] JD: Thanks a lot, John. Appreciate it. [14:12] Mark Palmini: Yeah. Now, I thought you guys just surfed a lot and that's why your sunburned, but now I realize you're just drinking yourself. [14:17] JD: Yeah, right. [14:18] Justin: I don't surf. I don't like. I don't want to get eaten by a shark. [14:22] Mark Palmini: Delicious. [14:22] JD: Sorry. Go ahead. [14:23] Justin: No such thing as direction. [14:24] Chad: Mark, how is your guys still full? [14:27] Mark Palmini: I've only had a drink. [14:28] Justin: You take a sip. [14:29] Mark Palmini: Who's sipping? [14:29] JD: No J.D. [14:31] Chad: drink the whole thing. Oh, he's been filling his up every time. [14:34] Mark Palmini: Well, geez, they didn't understand the rules. [14:36] JD: Can we let John. [14:38] Mark Palmini: They weren't exactly more entertaining, trust me. [14:40] JD: Jeez. [14:41] Mark Palmini: Anyways, you know, some of the things that we always say that we're so sick of, I mean, just even like, you know, Trump and the election and all that stuff. Last year, every time we get into the subject line, our numbers were through the roof. So if we get. Screw it. Financial wellness in there. [14:57] JD: You did that on purpose. [14:58] Mark Palmini: Yep. [14:59] Chad: Thanks for that, by the way. [15:00] Mark Palmini: Yeah. If we get fiduciary, if we get these terms in there, as much as everybody says they're sick of them, that's when we really start to see our engagement go up. So they're still huge. They're still, you know, they're still relevant. They're all like, ah, puke. I don't want to hear it again. But yeah, they're absolutely still relevant. [15:13] Chad: It's still. And we say that it's the session that I sought after yesterday and made sure I went into. [15:18] Mark Palmini: Yeah, right, exactly. [15:19] Chad: We all want to hear about it, even though we are getting beat with it. [15:23] Mark Palmini: It's just so important. But, yeah, exactly. To answer your question, though, you know, right now what we're seeing is the total cost of the benefits, right? So, you know, you got, you know, one employer dollar, you got the one employee dollar. We've heard about this before, but how [15:35] JD: are you going to allocate, you know, we're talking hsa. [15:38] Mark Palmini: That's what it is. [15:39] JD: Okay. [15:39] Mark Palmini: Especially well on the employee. Employee side. That's why you're seeing the rise of, you know, in our opinion, anyway, the rise of HSAs, because there's only so much that you can spend of that, you know, retirement benefit dollar, if you will, on healthcare. And it's getting increasingly, increasingly more about that. I mean, retirement benefits are what, 3% of the dollar spend? You know, something like that. Something outrageous. [15:58] JD: If health care in retirement is a big piece of the pie, then it's a relevant part of the discussion right now. [16:05] Mark Palmini: And it's crowding out so much of the other discussions that you've got to have right now. And they've got to come up with some kind of a solution, which hsa, I think, is absolutely fantastic. But, you know, in answer to your question, J.D. that's what we're really seeing is, okay, it's not so much about health versus retirement versus whatever, you know, voluntary whatever else is out there, pet insurance and all this other stuff. Right. It's about, you know, the CFO looking at it and saying, okay, how much am I actually spending and am I maximizing this? So that's really what we're seeing. [16:30] JD: I like that. I wasn't anticipating that, but now that makes perfect sense to me. And I agree with you 100. And I'm excited to see also how the industry reacts to that and what kind of tools and solutions. [16:42] Mark Palmini: It's exciting, man, because, you know, it's, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. Right. [16:47] JD: So, yeah, they're going to create some stuff. Yeah. [16:51] Mark Palmini: A journalism standpoint. It's absolutely fascinating, you know. [16:53] JD: Yeah. You guys like new stuff? [16:55] Mark Palmini: Yeah, we love about something. Right. [16:57] JD: Got to have something to write about. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to bore the audience with asking you questions about writer's block and how I could better write my blog. Maybe I'll ask you that later. Do you ever read my blog? [17:08] Mark Palmini: All the time. Every Monday morning, man. That's what I do. [17:14] Justin: Can I just say, we went. We were at JD's house for another work thing, and he read to, I think, all of us. Your, I guess the editor's note in the beginning. The beginning of the. Yeah, one of the magazines. And he was like, just screaming it like it was the gospel. It was fantastic. But there were some versions of that, [17:35] Mark Palmini: a lot of inflection into it. I want to see that. [17:38] Justin: There was the, the way, the way it was written. Is that like you. So when you write sort of some of the words, some of the slang, like JD was saying earlier, is that kind of how you wanted all of this to look, or is that only kind of subject for your little editor's note? Not little, but you know what I mean? [17:54] Mark Palmini: A little bit of both. To be honest with you. I wanted to play throughout the magazine a common thread. [17:58] JD: Yeah. [17:59] Mark Palmini: The editors know, let's face it, it's an ego play, right? I mean, that's kind of where you get to go a little crazy and make it about you. And hey, this is what I want you to get out of this. So it's a little bit of both, you know, But I definitely want that vein, kind of the subversive vein to run throughout the magazine because, you know, what you guys are doing here? We got to shake this up a little bit, right? And we to want. We want millennials, we want younger people engaged earlier, and this is the way that you're going to do it. [18:20] Justin: Do you want to really shake it up? I'm talking take it next level, shake it up. [18:27] JD: Do you want to sell ads? Do you want to sell tons of magazines? Do you want to go next level? [18:31] Justin: You want to see. [18:32] Mark Palmini: I don't want any of that. Of course I do. [18:33] Justin: We have an idea. [18:34] Mark Palmini: We have. [18:35] Justin: We're pitching it to you right now on the show for all our millions of viewers. [18:38] Mark Palmini: All right? This never happens. I've never pitched with ideas. [18:41] Justin: Could you imagine on the co cover of that magazine, [18:48] JD: We're going to make one right now. Hopefully you don't sue us for that. [18:51] Justin: Maybe it's the swimsuit edition. I don't know, but we'll be on it. All right. [18:55] Mark Palmini: Hey, this is the problem, right? I'm. I'm here, I'm under the lights. I mean, how do you say no to something like that? This was a genius maneuver on your part. [19:02] JD: You heard here. You heard it here. [19:03] Mark Palmini: Genius maneuver by you guys. Of course I would. I'm going to look like a jerk if I say no, now you're giving me free sharps beard. [19:09] Chad: We're going to get an email. And he's like, you can't air that episode. [19:11] JD: Episode 2025. He'll get us on the COVID That's right. [19:15] Mark Palmini: I've alerted my lawyers. [19:17] JD: That's a wrap. Thanks for tuning in, John. Thank you very much for being here. It's pretty easy where they can find you guys. 401k specialist mag. Easy. I go there every day. [19:27] Mark Palmini: Yeah, thanks, man. [19:27] JD: I do actually. Seriously, if you're watching this and you [19:30] Justin: don't go there and you don't look at that, you need to. It's not even a question. You're just not cool advisors behind the [19:36] JD: time interviews that John's done with a lot of our industry pros. Those have been underviewed and there's some good ones there. I think there's some good stuff. [19:43] Mark Palmini: And you're always pumping them for us, so I appreciate. [19:44] JD: They're good. They're good. [19:46] Justin: Good stuff. [19:46] JD: Thanks again for tuning in. We are the retireholics plus the editor in chief. I want a chief in my name. [19:53] Justin: You do have one. [19:54] JD: I guess it is in my name. [19:55] Mark Palmini: I never say chief. [19:56] JD: Executive off. [19:57] Mark Palmini: Well, there you go. [19:58] JD: Mic drop. Changing the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. Y. Roll tape, Brandon. Roll tape. [20:12] Mark Palmini: Roll tape, boys. Let's go. [20:13] JD: Roll tape. [20:14] Mark Palmini: Where's my mic? This is not the first time this has happened. [20:18] JD: We're here in Vegas, we're about to film an episode of Retireaholics and this imposter has jumped into our couch. [20:24] Chad: Whoa. [20:24] Justin: Hey, how's it going? [20:25] JD: The 401k coach, the one and only. Whoa, he's here. He's wearing the fanciest suits on the planet. Cuz that's what he does. [20:33] Mark Palmini: Always does fashion. [20:37] Chad: Fashion and fit. [20:38] Justin: Do you have cool socks on though, by the way? [20:42] Chad: I heard a really nice round of [20:43] Justin: applause for you, coach. [20:45] Chad: I heard a really nice round of applause today. Yesterday, didn't you? [20:50] JD: Weren't you in the corner for a tech session yesterday? [20:52] Chad: Or was that this morning? [20:53] Mark Palmini: I was just playing together. [20:54] Justin: Someone else broke. [20:55] Mark Palmini: You know when you drink a lot of this? [20:57] Chad: Hey, we haven't had any since 3 o' clock this morning. [21:00] Mark Palmini: So, Charlie, were you timing that or was it just perfect timing? You're walking by like you're gonna jump. I have perfect pitch. [21:10] Justin: Perfect pitch. [21:12] JD: Well, you've never invited me, so, you know, we are 100 down. [21:16] Mark Palmini: It was like we're gonna so down on me. [21:19] Justin: So I figured, hey, first of all, [21:22] Mark Palmini: oh, they were interviewing you. [21:24] JD: I'm sorry. [21:25] Mark Palmini: Come sit on my lap. [21:26] Justin: Come on, man. This could get really good. [21:29] Mark Palmini: I got stuff I gotta do. [21:31] JD: Come on. [21:31] Justin: Let's get some room. [21:32] JD: This is perfect. [21:33] Mark Palmini: 401k code. Signing out now. [21:36] Justin: You're gonna get the real deal. [21:37] Mark Palmini: Maybe they'll have me back. What do you say? [21:40] Justin: Everybody comment below. So just depends. Depends. [21:44] Mark Palmini: We want the coach on the show. [21:47] Justin: Dot com. [21:48] Mark Palmini: Can you handle the truth? Can you handle the truth? [21:55] Chad: Thank you, sir. [21:56] JD: By the way, that will definitely go to do. [21:58] Mark Palmini: Oh, yeah. You guys want this on? [22:02] JD: It's up to you. [22:03] Chad: No biggie. Either way, [22:06] JD: you're definitely going to work that in.