Michael Kitces on 401(k) Advisors vs. Financial Planners

[0:15] Mark: Gets his head. Was bob into the music there? [0:19] Michael Kitces: Absolutely. I can get into it. It's better than my intro music that you wonderfully grabbed off of our office hours video, which was like a seven second ditty. I think I bought off of upwork for $5. So I'm glad. I'm glad it's getting some mileage to your audience. [0:39] JD: Let's see. Howdy, y'. [0:42] Michael Kitces: All. [0:42] JD: Welcome to another episode of Retireholics. My name is J.D. you call me Jimmy Dean if you want to, even though that's not not my real name. I'm partnering up today with three Tumbleweed watching Wrangler jeans, wearing tobacco spitting, cow tipping, rodeo watching cousin Marion. These three roughnecks are the best 401k slinging cowboys west of the Mississippi. Dirty Chad Johansen, fast draw McNeil. And everybody's favorite rodeo clown robe guy. Welcome, y'. [1:25] Michael Kitces: All. [1:25] JD: We're fixing to get the show started real soon. That's the show that 401k specialists called a disaster akin to New Coke. Yep. And if you're. If you're from Texas or Oklahoma and I, the California guy, just offended you with that little makeshift accent. I'm. I really don't give a shit. Fuck you. Welcome to another episode of Retireholics, Justin. And we got a big guess. We got a really big guess. I don't know how long I'm going to keep doing this accent. Maybe the whole show. But we got a really big guest. Justin. I'd like you to introduce him in the audience out there. You rate. Justin's little intro of Mr. Kitts is here on a 0 to 10 in the chat bar. We'll see how he does. Take it away, Justin. [2:15] Justin: I didn't realize how big he was until I went to the Google machine and noticed something that I don't think we've had any other guests actually have. And I was super impressed. And I fact checked this. I went to Nevin Adams, Mark's BFF, Fred, checked out Janya, Jeannie, Shamanda, J.D. nobody else had this. This guy has a Wikipedia page. [2:37] JD: Oh yeah. [2:39] Justin: And I read through it. [2:39] JD: I'm like, holy, fantastic, right? [2:42] Justin: But let me ask you, Michael, there's a lot of personal shit in there. Did you just write that up to make yourself seem more legit? [2:49] Michael Kitces: No, that is. That is a. Well, it's anonymous. Fan of the blog. I'm pretty sure I figured out who it is. But you know, between what I write about on the blog and what we put out there and just media stuff like it's the Modern Internet age. Like you can find pretty much anything about anyone if you want to see someone. Sleuthed me a lot. It was kind of flattering, tiny bit creepy. But like this. This is the modern social media age. Like, I've just. I've decided we have to get used to this as. As reality now. Nothing's private anymore. [3:23] Justin: Once this. Once the show actually posts tomorrow. Go back to. Yeah, to the Wikipedia page. It's going to say retired guests are the retireholics in there. [3:31] Mark: Who throws content in there? [3:33] JD: Yeah, we should do that. [3:34] Justin: Yep, yep, yep. Anyways, this man of many talents dabbles in theater. He's a former emt, former hacker, or maybe he still might do some of that shit. Co founder of XY Planning, active pay, smattering of other companies. Head of planning strategy for Buckingham Wealth Partners, author of the Nerd's Eye View blog, father of three, recipient of the Hart Financial Planning Award. Ladies and gentlemen, the man in blue, Michael Gitzis. [4:00] JD: Wow. [4:00] Justin: Thank you. [4:02] JD: I can't believe you remembered all that. Justin. [4:05] Mark: He's been practicing. [4:08] JD: 9. [4:08] Michael Kitces: This is me saluting it. [4:09] Mark: Oh, fuck. [4:10] Justin: I got an 8. [4:11] JD: You got a whoop. [4:12] Justin: 9. [4:12] JD: 2. 5. 10. [4:14] Michael Kitces: You got the man in blue at the end. Like I was. I was sold on that. [4:18] JD: Frickin. [4:18] Michael Kitces: Josh. Josh did call you out. It's advice pay. Because you know, you get paid for advice. I name companies. You said active pay. [4:27] Justin: I'm sorry, I suffer from dyslexia. [4:31] Michael Kitces: We try to name things as literally as possibly can. I also have a business called New Planner Recruiting. Guess what we do sell tacos. [4:42] JD: Nice. [4:43] Michael Kitces: Keep it simple. [4:44] JD: Leave it to Iza to call you out on that. Let's see. Housekeeping. Housekeeping. Make sure you're in gallery view because that's the best way to view it. We're going to be playing CBC, that's for sure. That's chat bar champion, Mr. Kitces. So do your best to pay attention to the chat bar and you can vote someone into the semifinals. Okay, Champion for tonight. And then you out there in the audience, you will vote for the winner. You know how that works. We're going to play Acro Sin. Syn? S Y N. Acro Sin. What this is. Kids, just pay attention. If you. Starting now, if you say any word that is a acronym or an initialism. My name withstanding. You can say my name. Then you must drink. Okay, Carl, you must drink from your penalty drink of some kind. And a lot of our guests kind of haven't been playing by the rules these days, so make sure you're drinking when you're. When you're in the. You're saying the words that you're not supposed to. [5:49] Mark: Jd, do you properly prepare our guests that they're supposed to bring an entire bottle of liquor for Acro sin? Cause I don't think you do anymore. [5:57] Michael Kitces: Oh, it was in bold. Like, I get the whole email of like, we're excited for the show. Like, we jump on at this time. Here's your panelist link. We're gonna have some talking points about this. Bomb the email. All caps, bold important. Make sure you prepare with a drink to sip on and then your penalty drink, hard alcohol shots or stiff mix drink. And my only challenge is, like, I'm not a beer drinker, so I'm pretty much going from hard alcohol A to hard alcohol B, which may be a little dangerous, but would not be the first. I will try to pace myself as best I can. [6:39] Justin: Jd, do any guests ever send you a writer? [6:42] Michael Kitces: No. [6:43] JD: No. [6:44] Mark: If Michael didn't send a writer, then nobody's got a writer. [6:48] JD: Michael, I do want you to know that's not a form email. I. You're the only guest. I say we're really excited about having you on next week. [6:55] Michael Kitces: Oh, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. [6:58] JD: Same line to everybody. Super excited to have you on the show next week. Okay, here's my vibe. Here's my vibe for the show. Oh, don't say vibe. [7:06] Justin: Jesus. [7:07] JD: It's a vibe. Mark. I listened to Michael a long time ago interview Janya Stout. You guys know janya stout 401k stud. And it was great, by the way. We were able to learn a lot, and we've had Janya on the show a couple times. But I quickly learned that even though Kitces is a financial services God, you know, just big time royalty, he doesn't know that much about 401k. I was kind of sitting at home going, this guy doesn't know 401k, man. So I think that that's a good thing today. I would like for Michael Kitces, if this is okay with you, Michael, to kind of be the spokesperson for what I'm going to call financial planners. Is that an okay term? [7:53] Michael Kitces: Absolutely. [7:54] JD: And so I think it'd be really valuable for all the 401k pros in the audience and for us to hear from that group, because we're pretty myopic. You know, we just live in our world and don't pay a lot of attention to your side of things. So I think that'll make for some fun conversations. Today, let's dive right into it. Okay, question number one, and I'll put this to Mr. Kitces. Here we are on the precipice of some big changes in our industry. This convergence of what I'll call wealth and retirement, but wealth could also be wealth management. And this financial planning skill set that you all do so well is converging together. And a lot of people, I think, are worried on both sides. A lot of people are optimistic on both sides of the opportunities that it creates for them. But let me. Let me ask you, what are your feelings around this concept? And if. How do you feel as a planner? Or how does the planner community feel if a lot of these 401k guys and girls, these 401k pros, are now planning to go after these participants in these plans and offer them financial planning in one shape or form? Are you pissed? Are you concerned? Are you ready to battle? What's. [9:16] Michael Kitces: So I have to answer this from a few different angles. So from the industry at large, from the financial planner industry at large. I think, frankly, most of our side of the industry is basically unaware this is happening and just flat out doesn't have it on the radar screen. [9:37] Mark: Or we. [9:38] Michael Kitces: We view what we do is so different, so individualized, so personalized. The mentality of financial planner world is like, y' all do the big plan stuff for a zillion people at once. We do the individual planning stuff one client at a time. And for so many of us on the individual advisor world, like, our trigger event game on for us is the moment that they leave your world. That is, they retire, and there's now a retirement rollover event, and that's game on for us. So not even necessarily viewed as an overlap, at least historically. Like, when your world ended was. It was when our world began. Now, as. As you said, and I agree, like, I think that's changing, I frankly think that's changing in a way that ultimately will be positive for consumers, positive for financial advice, and really crappy for a lot of independent financial planners, frankly, because so many of us have attached our businesses to basically the 401k exit event from our end, the IRA rollover event. IRA rollovers historically were glorious. Oh, you're kidding. All right. [10:49] JD: Individual retirement account. [10:50] Michael Kitces: Do I have to do the penalty version? [10:53] JD: And by the way, it's not a shot. It's just a sip. [10:55] Michael Kitces: Just a little sip. [10:56] JD: Oh, yeah. [10:56] Michael Kitces: No, you're not getting a whole shot off this. There's way too much. Just a little sip. [11:00] JD: I get what you're saying this show [11:02] Michael Kitces: is way too long for a full shot. But I am, I am pouring some. Oh man, you can't see it on the screen. Some lovely patron. So we're gonna sip very gently here. [11:12] JD: I get what you're saying. [11:13] Michael Kitces: It's a good penalty. [11:15] JD: I get what you're saying in that. And I definitely want to talk about the. When people get to retirement later in the show because I think there's some interesting things to unpack there. But let's stick with this 401k ers going after all these individuals. I think a lot of planners are out there thinking that, oh well, the industry is really looking to help all those people that are ignored by y', all, you know, the ones with the small accounts and using technology to get to them. And I think that's a really cool wave, you know, or trend that's going to happen. However, I do think we're going to come to a time where one of your planners there in your community is going to lose like a high net worth client and they're going to lose it to the 401k person. Because clearly the 401k people that are going to offer planning aren't just going to stick to the little guys. Right? I mean, they're going to go up. [12:04] Michael Kitces: No, no they're not. And to me, well, so it's not that we won't lose the client, it's that we'll never get an at bat. We'll never get in a bat with them. [12:16] JD: Yeah, right. [12:17] Michael Kitces: So the reality in the current landscape, because everybody always has dollars tied up in the world of their 401k plan. When they get to the point that they want to leave or they want to roll out, they typically don't have an advisor relationship. In fact, because most of us historically can't work with anybody when their money's tied up in a 401 plan. The moment that they actually get to the point of doing a rollover and dollars become liquid, like it's, it's a first time advisor opportunity. So they were, as an independent advisor, like I've never been in competition with anyone for this client before because no one was ever serving them with any kind of holistic advice. So they have a rollover event, there's dollars in play. You know, we get to come in and talk about our holistic retirement planning and comprehensive financial planning and all the stuff that we do. We get a chance to win the client and you know, usually we do pretty well to me, what changes and we'd written about this on the blog. A couple of years ago, to me, the real transition event was financial engines getting merged in with Edelman Financial. So you take Edelman, a firm that built, I mean, that guy built a $20 billion RIA from scratch. Yeah, I realized as soon as I said it. I could tell as soon as you said it, you knew. Oh yeah, I know. I've done it. So he built a $20 billion firm entirely from scratch. Incredibly scaled financial planning advice offering gets scooped up into a 401k provider with financial engines. And to me, this gets pretty straightforward. You start putting Edelman Advisors in front of 401 plan participants. Maybe not all of them, but that upper segment where the economics makes sense. And so what in the past was, hey, this client queues up for a retirement rollover and I get to work with them. Now suddenly is when they show up in the retirement rollover, it's like, oh no, I've been working with an Edelman advisor for seven years. CFP does great work. Already have my whole retirement plan mapped out on an individual basis. We're just going to do an internal rollover. What did I hit? [14:21] JD: What did he hit? You got to tell him. [14:25] Michael Kitces: Financial planner. What did I hit? I thought I was being good. [14:28] Mark: Certified financial planner. [14:30] Michael Kitces: Oh, okay. [14:31] Mark: The chat bar will call you out. [14:33] Michael Kitces: I'm very, I'm very pro. Certified financial planner. So that's going to be a tough J.D. [14:39] JD: here's. [14:39] Mark: Here's my question back to you, starting with, we'll call it the small accounts. Because I've said from the beginning, I think a lot of this has to do with access. Right. I know the financial planners want the access, the 401k advisors wants the access to these individuals. But correct me if I'm wrong, this has always existed. Meaning that there's a 401k advisor that usually is born and grows in this business from private wealth and then decides to focus on the 401k. So they've always had a planning side to them and most of them partner with a financial planner, someone that they're doing the private wealth with if they're not doing it directly. So now what I believe is the real difference, what we're seeing emerging is that we're creating technologies in an effort to service the average working American, not the high net worth working American. And that's going to be a benefit, I think, for financial planners because they want them post retirement, not necessarily a 30 year old making 80k a year. [15:39] JD: But Chad, I think if you look back five years ago, I know if you look back 10 years ago, it was almost not okay for the 401k advisor to solicit business from the participants. It was literally frowned on. [15:55] Mark: I think we're using that term too loosely. I mean when you say 401k advisor, I think genius stout, I think Alex Astley. I think these folks that are solely focused on 401k but I think the vast majority of people that are selling 401 plans or consulting on 401k plans aren't 401k advisors. They're advisors and they're doing some 401 business. [16:19] JD: But I still believe I would venture [16:21] Michael Kitces: say I'm not even sure they're what I would call advisors. Their insurance and investment company salespeople who are represent companies that, that sell them. I mean they may not even necessarily be giving advice and charging for financial plans. [16:36] JD: See, look, it says he's. I'm with you. He's got dinosaur viewpoints on the 401. [16:40] Mark: That's a long time ago. That's when I started. That's how it was that. But it's. That hasn't been that way for a decade. [16:46] Michael Kitces: Those are the people I still hit and see around our area. [16:49] JD: There's something. They don't exist. They're there. They're still there. They're out there. [16:52] Michael Kitces: Well, because then I live in individual consumer land. So like I'm talking to dude who owns the garage maintenance station up the street. Like I realize you guys are in a mid to large size 401k plan environment. I don't see as much but at least small plans. I still see a lot of those guys. [17:09] JD: Yeah, they're still out there, but I definitely think there's a trend. But all I'm saying to everyone here is that it is changing a lot and it's going to become more and more acceptable for that advisor. And I would say now Chad, you're going to find even the 401k pros, I mean we know this, that didn't do any of that, are now looking to add that on. Let me take this in a different. Let me take this in a different direction though because maybe it doesn't have to be a battle between these two groups. It might make a lot of sense for partnerships for collaboration between the 401k Pro and the firm that does insane financial planning to find ways to work together. I believe that's what we're seeing from the large institutions. Right. They're making these acquisitions or what Chad likes to call merger and acquisitions. To gain scale and to bring other solutions to their clients. So why can't the small people, the guy or the girl with 50 plans who doesn't have that financial planning background and expertise? Kit says, I mean do you think there's an opportunity for them? And don't say yes if you don't to find friends out there to partner with and work together. [18:18] Michael Kitces: I think there's certainly opportunity to work together. It just becomes a function of, of how they just how are you going to do it? I mean what is the business going to going to look like? You know, for us in the, in the financial advisor world, you know we generally live under one or two models. I charge you a flat fee for a plan, I guess one to three. I charge a flat fee for a plan, I implement some kind of insurance or investment product and I, and I get paid or I charge an assets on our management fee. None of which classically I am built at least as a non 401k advisor, none of which I'm built to do off a 401k plan. So I just like for most of us it very rapidly comes down to just literally like who's going to pay and how are they going to cut the proverbial or literal check. The payment mechanism is actually way more binding and just making that happen I would think. [19:11] JD: Michael, it could go one of several different ways. I mean it's possible that you could do a hybrid where the employer pays for part of these financial services as [19:22] Michael Kitces: well as the advisor. I would love to take their money to do that. I'd be happy to. [19:26] JD: And it could be a hybrid where the participant that wants those planning services also pays a little bit. I know. Empowerment. Little birdie told me that Empower is working on their solution and we should probably talk a bit about that. It's record keepers you have to think about too. They're going to offer this financial planning to participants. But Empower is looking to bill the participants that want to sign up for this. A monthly fee and a startup fee. So I think one of the use [19:53] Michael Kitces: cases we're seeing crop up on AdvicePay now is we have a couple advisors in the 401k world that are coming in saying I want to use advice. We build advice, pay to bill either standalone financial planning fees or monthly subscription fees as an independent financial planner model. We have a few people now are coming in saying no, no, I want to use advice, pay to bill my plan participants a monthly subscription fee in you outside of the K plan for the non 401k advice, but they're using that just to build a systematized billing mechanism. So we. I don't even know what they're charging on their 20 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or 100 bucks a month or whatever. They're doing something that's probably lower than what a lot of independent planners charge, but a good fee for doing it. Volume in a 401k world. And I do think you get a lot of interesting models that can extend off of that. A version of that is basically like a prepaid legal plan, right? That same sort of small dollar amounts, high volume, pooled basis, pooled financial planning support to get them services. Your higher tier of clients maybe either they've got other financial wherewithal to pay or the employer's willing to pay. Like I absolutely do think there are models for it. But just advisors that live in the independent world often just they we don't have the mechanism set to be able scalably serve and bill the participants. Frankly, I think it's much better served for those that are in the 401k world to add it as opposed to necessarily partner with it. And I think at the end of the day, while you're seeing great like financial engines, go after Edelman and Power, go after personal capital. I mean Fidelity just announced they're hiring a thousand advisors. [21:35] JD: I have to grab the bull by the horns and interrupt them from time to time. [21:38] Mark: Get right in there. [21:39] Michael Kitces: Well, you got to try. You got to get right in there. [21:41] JD: Just go for it. [21:42] Mark: No, here would be my thought is I think the 401k advisors were using loosely. They tend to offer a financial plan as part of their offering. When they're pitching a client, if it's a reasonable size plan, they're stepping in and saying here's what I will offer no additional charge because this is what I'm charging on the 401k. I'll do financial plans for everybody. Let's not be naive for the like [22:06] Michael Kitces: for the individual business owner. No like the person or for like every single person in the plan. [22:11] Mark: They're saying it for everybody. And let's not be naive though. What they're providing to the average employee is not what they're providing to the key decision maker for that high net worth person. What you're doing for someone is not what they're doing for the average employee. And this is where JD and I are going to butt heads because I think the record keeping community is in a good position to offer those services to the average person in a 401k plan, you got a 50 person company and you've got 35 people making below 50k. The technology needs to be embraced for those people. Just as you mentioned, Michael, you can't scale it on your side. And so I think the record keepers are going to be the ones that [22:49] JD: need to do Chad. [22:49] Michael Kitces: Or to be fair, I think you could scale it, but. But only if you've got the volume to hit scale quickly. Like you're not doing that one plan at a time and 50 participants at a time. Yeah, you might do that as a record keeper. Like, hey, we're rolling out a new service, we're going to hit 100,000 participants and we hired only 500 advisors to serve them and just like instantly live at a level of scale that virtually no independent advisor has. [23:14] JD: Chad. Edward Murphy of Empower was on Ross Marino's podcast Outcomes and he surprised me. He was really cognizant of the advisor and his relationship with them. And he said, look, yes, we're building these tools to your point to service all these at scale, all these lower end people. I shouldn't say lower end people, not the high net worth people. But then he said one thing. He said, however, we're only going to do that when it's been blessed by the advisor. Right. If that advisor wants to do that role, then we'll let them do that. Now I don't know how long you can trust them on that, but I get that. But I'm not against you, Chad. I'm more the entrepreneur that says to that advisor that has 50 401k plans. If you want to outsource it to the record keeper, fine. But why wouldn't you look to create something, add something to your business model where you could generate some revenue, do some more good. I'm just in this growth mode, like there's an opportunity. [24:17] Mark: Well, there's a thought. You try to monetize each individual client as much as possible, right? That's business 101. And so if you're looking at saying I have a 401k client and I can monetize every employee, I get it. I just don't think you can deliver what those folks actually need. [24:33] JD: This is why I say partner then. And so sure, one option is let's let the record keeper do it. But another option is like, and that's always putting up to Kitsis is maybe there's some dope ass financial planner that's been doing this for 20 years. Has it really figured out? And maybe the two of you can come together and find some. Some snap on technology to find a way to deliver in an efficient way. I'm just, you know, I'm just spitballing. I don't, I just don't want us to have an absolute war. I'd rather find a way where we could, we could partner. [25:04] Michael Kitces: I'm all for not having, not having wars between the channels. I. I do have to admit, jd, like, I, you know, being, I guess, like entrepreneurially wired at heart as well. I, I do lean in many ways in your direction. Like if, if I'm an advisor that's doing a lot of work in these plans. I've already got a lot of plans. Yeah. I'd be tempted to start rolling out some kind of advice offering at least to call it some upper tier of them, you know, lower than just like doing something special for the business owner and higher than just trying to do something for every single employee rank and file. Not that I don't think the employee level deserves advice as well, but to me, that's just. That's hard to build and scale. You know, I think you end up with a technology layer, an advice layer, and some kind of premium layer at the top. And that, that middle layer, I could see, I could see someone that's got a lot of plans going after that. Like, I just. You got the main plans. Go hire a person and hire someone. Like, go hire a person offer and start doing it. [26:05] JD: I like this guy. [26:06] Michael Kitces: There's money on the table. [26:07] JD: Yeah. Hire someone and do it. So anyways, there's lots of different ways to pull this off. I just would, like. I'd hate to see someone leave the opportunity on the table, you know, like, think about it. Maybe you can benefit from this. We'll talk a little bit more about PepsiPs later and maybe we'll flip this coin over. [26:24] Mark: Oh, that was number two. I thought that was his first. [26:26] Michael Kitces: That was his first. I think Brandon tried to do it too. [26:30] JD: But before we do that, let's play a game. Let's spin the wheel, Michael. We're going to spin this magical wheel of ice, and it's going to land on someone. Not you. Don't worry about it. No, it can't be. No, no, no. He's out. Can you spin it again, Brandon? Spin it again. Brandon's hungover from last week. [27:02] Michael Kitces: No. Oh, my. No. No. [27:06] JD: Who's taking it for him? Who's taking it for him? Brandon told me that last week. If you tuned in last week, he said he maybe crossed the line from Having fun and to alcohol poisoning. [27:19] Michael Kitces: We're going to give him a break, I think. Brandon. Well, I'd say either spin it. Spin it again or have Brandon pick somebody. [27:27] JD: Okay, Brandon, spin it or pitch again. [27:30] Mark: Spin it again. Or Justin has to do it. That's my. That's my mark. Has to. He doesn't have anything tonight. [27:47] JD: Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. [27:54] Mark: If I'm safe kits. [27:57] Justin: Hold on. [27:58] JD: Tell them. Tell the. While we drink Smirnoff, you know, tell the audience about your most recent blog post or your video with Carl. Whatever the fuck you want to talk to them about. We're going to drink this. Go ahead. You have the floor. [28:09] Michael Kitces: Oh, man. All right. Oh, well, these blog posts. Sorry. What? Went live with Carl today. We got super touchy feely today. So for all those advisors. So a lot of advisors on our end because we're so living in the individual client world one at a time. A lot of advisors get so wrapped up in individual client relationships. It, like, messes with your head. Like, can't get clients out of my head. Can't focus on my own stuff. Can't get my own life going. You know, we do see a lot of advisors that really get stuck that way. So today's episode with car was all about, like, getting your client stuff out of your head so you can just enjoy your darn vacation. [28:49] JD: Guess what, Michael? Guess what, Michael. You can't solve it with Evernote. That's not a. That's not a tangible solution to the problem. [28:56] Michael Kitces: It is. It works. [28:57] JD: I listen. [28:58] Michael Kitces: Get it out of your head with Evernote. It works. [29:00] JD: I was trying to impress you that I actually listened. [29:02] Michael Kitces: I know. I appreciate it. You. [29:04] JD: You. [29:04] Michael Kitces: You listened. Or you at least, like, control f find in the. In the transcript. So I appreciate that. [29:09] JD: You guys do get really sappy on those shows. I love it. Like, you go deep. And if you call me a surfer hippie, Carl is 100x the server hippie to me, man. I feel like I want to sit on that guy's couch and tell him about my problems, and he can help me out. I mean, he's deep. Deep, deep, deep. [29:27] Michael Kitces: Yes, he is. [29:29] JD: Let's go to everyone's favorite subject. Pooled employer plans. And we'll do it with a little headline. We'll mix it up with the headline. There was an article that came out. It was actually more of a press release from Paychex, and a ton of people sent me this article. Brandon put it up there. And a ton of People sent this to me and I think the premise behind them sending it to me was like, check it out, J.D. because Michael, I've been an anti pooled employer plan person and saying that it's never going to make that big of a difference. And so they're saying to me, look, JD 2000 plans. Like, you're wrong, man. They're crushing it. Here's what I say to those people, and some of them have tuned in here tonight. Paychecks already was number one on the leaderboard every year in terms of new plan sales. Right? What was that number, Chad? I think they sell like 7,000, 7,000 range. Someone says 20,000 plan a year. Okay, and how do they do that? They're constantly marketing tube banging on the door of their current payroll clients. Right? You should set up a 401k plan. You should do this with us because it's free, it's easy, it's piece of cake. Well, all they've done is just move their own cheese, in my opinion. They have decided that they want to funnel a lot of those clients to their pooled employer plan solution, and that's what they've done. So it's a. You call it a zero sum game, right? Or whatever. It's just, it's just moving it over to this stuff. I do not think that this 2000 companies is any type of indicator of the success of pooled employer plans. Quite the contrary. I just think it's a clear proof that Paychex is selling this. Go ahead, Chad. [31:19] Mark: I would be genuinely curious to know how that conversation went, because I imagine many of those, and I didn't read the article, JD but I imagine many of those are existing Paychex clients already. And my thought would be the conversation was positioned in a way. It was like, why wouldn't you do this? And they're not analyzing, they're not determining if moving to this pool is in the best interest. And then they're not looking at other providers and making sure that from a cost basis this is prudent for it. They're probably just saying, oh, my 401k provider is telling me to do it. So I'm going, I bet you the majority of those are existing plans and they're just being sold to move over. [31:56] Michael Kitces: I say, granted, I don't live in this world. I had actually seen the headline. I was assuming it just Paychex got 5,000 new companies in their payroll system and 2,000 of them got cross sold in the latest thing. [32:11] JD: It's kind of true. It's kind of true. [32:13] Michael Kitces: I mean, just they're constantly onboarding new businesses. They're constantly cross selling them on every possible thing under the paycheck's umbrella. And this is the latest thing that's probably in the sidebar when you log into Paychecks for whatever it is that they want to sell you. [32:25] JD: This, if you click on some of their stuff, it's absolutely horrendous. It's like the article salesman. Yeah. [32:32] Michael Kitces: I mean, again, this is just one article, but it does state that these were new. [32:37] Mark: Like, that these were. They. [32:39] Michael Kitces: They were sitting on the sidelines. Non established. So I'm not trying to combat JD and Chad on that. [32:45] JD: I think they're new too. I didn't say they weren't new. [32:48] Mark: That was me. [32:50] Michael Kitces: But they may be 401k clients paychecks was getting anyways. They just. [32:54] JD: That's what I said. [32:55] Michael Kitces: It's a new shiny instead of the old one. [32:58] JD: They were gonna sell 8,000 plans anyways and they just ended up sending 2,000 this way. Here's my problem with it. A couple people called me haters in the comments and I love that. Bring it. It's. It's not that I hate this. It is. I hate this system. Let me be honest with you. I hate this fucking shit. And here's why. Paychecks is the PPO check. Swing is the pooled plant provider. Paychex is the record keeper on this pooled employer plan. Paychex is the administrator, the compliance administrator on this pooled employer plan. Paychex is the payroll provider on this pooled employer plan. This is bullshit. And I don't even know. This is like riddled with conflicts of interest and I don't even know how it exists going forward, but. So there. Call me a hater because I'm a fricking hater and I think this thing's stupid. [33:49] Michael Kitces: Well, but I think what you're describing, JD is what happened. Like, oh, we figured out a new version of 401k plan where we make even more margin in every possible. That we can take a piece of every single layer of the stack. Like every person that gets onboarded is now getting pitched the pooled employer version [34:06] JD: to go against J.D. [34:08] Michael Kitces: mark, I was just curious. You're hating on them and I say that loosely. I know you're not a hater, but right now, what's the difference than when they were just selling 7 to 8 to 10,000 new plans on their platform where it was still the same thing Because I just knocked your microphone Just because It's a pooled employer plan. Are you pissed off about what? [34:33] JD: What is really the difference there? It is, it is. And let me ask you this, what's the role of the advisor? [34:40] Michael Kitces: They probably don't have one. [34:41] JD: I don't think they do on a lot of these and I don't know that for true. So I don't like that. Secondly, I don't like the fact that, that it's got all these conflicts of interest in it. Before that you could have been out of paychecks, but you still have some choice in a lot of these areas. They're just shoving you down this. Here's the argument that everyone out there in the audience should be making at me. For the longest time I've said that there's really no efficiencies to these pooled employer plans. There's no economies of scale, there's no administrative efficiencies. But I was wrong. If you're the payroll company and the record keeper and the compliance administrator. Whoa. And your paychecks, you've got some tech behind the scenes and you've made this really easy. And that is why Paychex would prefer to put these people into these pooled employer plans is because it's going to be a better piece of cake for them behind the scenes. And there are so many reasons why I don't like that and I've discussed them before and I don't want to stick on this. [35:39] Justin: What's even scarier about that is because we've all talked about it for a long time is they are the compliance administrator on that and they're doing it on a much more massive scale now too. I think if they, if they keep getting, if that part keeps growing. [35:52] Michael Kitces: So [35:54] Justin: is that data going to be scrubbed or validated or anything like that? Are they going to stick with the same model they've always done and how many plans we've taken over where shit hits the fan when we start doing our testing? [36:05] JD: And Mark, they've never been good at it, even in the standalone space. And so now for them to rely on more of these efficiencies and more of this tech is just going to be more problems. And so it bums me out. But Michael, you got under on my last nerve when you wrote an email to me and I won't read the whole, I won't read it all, but you talked about the non time trick dabblers. Yeah, and it was a pretty long one. But you made a really interesting point. You talked about the pooled employer plans. And how someone in your school, like a financial planner, could leverage that to actually get into the retirement plan space. In theory, because there's less for them to do. And you said that, hey, then they could offer their own model portfolios. Your financial planner, they could offer planning to those participants. And you even said something that freaked me out. You said, oh, and maybe they'd offer the plan for free just to have the. So is there an opportunity for planners to get the upper hand now and could they do it? Dare I say this, through these pooled [37:09] Michael Kitces: employer plans, I think there's some opportunity, I think there's some opportunity around it for the independent advisor side. Again, apples don't fall far from the tree. We all tend to come back to whatever our anchor business models tend to be. So independent advisor world. I'm usually either selling, I'm selling plans, I'm implementing products, or I'm charging assets under management. Independent advisors. These days it's pretty much assets under management or planning fees. Financial planning fees. So yeah, if I'm an advisor who's got whatever my hundred clients or a mid sized firm that's got a few hundred clients and somewhere in there I've got a dozen or few small business owners, I may not want to go through all the work of setting up 401k plans. Frankly, from our end, there's not a lot of dollars in it. There's not a lot of money in it. It's not a great opportunity for us relative to our core business model, which is why we either send a lot of it to you folks or, or let paychecks gobble them up. But you know, if I get to live in my independent planning firm and say, yeah, I'm Smith Financial Planning and I'm going to have the Smith Financial Planning pooled employer plan, our private branded thing for all of our clients, I'm going to trick it out with all of my preferred financial planning strategies. So we're going to amp up the after tax contribution permission so that I can do my mega Backdoor Roth strategies like all the tax. [38:32] JD: Such a planner. You're such a planner. [38:34] Michael Kitces: All the tax stuff that we love to do. So like I'll trick out my pooled employer plan with all the highly leveraged stuff that we love doing from the planner direction. What is that? I wrote? [38:46] Mark: Michael thinks Mega Backdoor Roth is going to work in a small plan. Yeah, that's what I wrote. [38:52] Michael Kitces: I'll figure out how to jam it in there. If I'm doing it systematically for my clients and selling It. Right. Like I can start building it up. That way I can try to do it for all of my. I can try to do this for all my clients. [39:06] JD: No, those are good points. [39:07] Mark: They are. [39:08] Michael Kitces: And it becomes appealing for us if at the end of the day I get enough economics by working off the client. Yeah, I might give away the 401k plan for free if that's what gets me in the door. For a small business owner that's going to have a $10 million liquidity event someday, my economic long term value for not even charging for that 401 plan gets very compelling very quickly. [39:29] JD: The 3P says pimp your plan. No. To me even just hearing that concept, it should motivate everyone to think about it doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on or what you do to think about. Like, okay, how do you want to try to maximize this? My only anti pooled employer plan comment would be like you could do all the things that Kitsa said in a standalone plan like you don't need a pooled employer plan to do it. But I understand you all the appeal [40:00] Michael Kitces: from our end is, you know, if I can get, if I can get either a, if I can get my models in there so I can actually get my investment management fee. Obviously now we're going right down the same conflicts of interest that you're raising on paycheck. So totally get the conflicts. But if I'm sitting there from the advisor and like this puts business opportunity when I can take my models and put them into my clients pooled employer plan that I'm running for all my small business owners, like now I can scale my advice investment management business into a bunch of my 401k clients that I can't necessarily do right now. The big, the big caveat though is like we're not, we're not built to be the fiduciary administrator on the back end. Which means frankly like my. I'm guessing this probably gets done with independent advisory firms in partnership with someone that wants to market like white labeled pooled employer plans into the independent advisor channel. We're not, we're not ready to actually do the back office. [40:54] JD: No, you're not. [40:55] Michael Kitces: End of what that takes. [40:56] JD: First of all, I'm a fan of advisors having their own model portfolios. I don't, I don't see that as a conflict of the of interest. I'm, I'm, you know, you all know me. I'm. [41:06] Michael Kitces: Well, it is when they're the ones that are always the Only thing on the approved list. [41:10] JD: Well, but see, I agree with you. I don't. This is the new slang. I don't know if you guys know this yet because I just learned it the other day. I think I'm stealing it from paychecks of all people. But I wouldn't want the advisors to be the P3 either. That's the. The pooled plant fighter. The P3. That's kind of cool. [41:25] Mark: Is that an acro? [41:29] Michael Kitces: I cannot imagine how that's legit. [41:32] JD: No, I don't think it is. [41:34] Justin: That's. [41:34] Michael Kitces: Is that. [41:35] Justin: I mean, you're condensing, which is what they did in the article. So I. I say vote. [41:39] Michael Kitces: So if you make an acronym of an acronym, that's okay. [41:42] JD: All right. [41:43] Michael Kitces: No, there it is. [41:46] JD: But Kitsis. Yeah, no, I don't think you guys will be the pooled plan provider. Damn. I wanted to use it again because it's cool. You'll just be the advisor. You'll find someone else to do that. It might be a compliance administrator, it might be a record keeper. I mean, there's ways for this work. I can't believe I'm talking pro pooled employer plan. So let's frickin move on from this. I got other stuff I want to talk about. And time is clicking by fast. One of my favorites. And I think it's one of your favorites. Spend a few moments with drunk Mark. [42:19] Justin: Oh, yes. [42:21] Mark: Didn't know we were having. [42:22] Justin: Is this the video I sent from [42:23] JD: a past episode of Retire Alex where Mark got totally wasted and we put the camera on him at the end of the show. This is many years ago. This is after a golf tournament, I believe. Brandon, are you there? You know how Mark does his end of the show moment. You should do it like at the dinner later. [42:43] Michael Kitces: This was amazing. [42:46] JD: Oh, it's exhausting trying to make those guys look good, you know? That's it. [42:53] Michael Kitces: Dude, I thought it was. [42:54] Mark: When I say. [42:56] Justin: What did you say, Mark, when you were. We were at the golf tournament, wasn't it? [43:00] Mark: When I say 401, you say K. And he grabbed the microphone and was yelling at the front of the dinner. [43:04] Justin: Something. Something like that. [43:05] Michael Kitces: What's up, Malcolm? You want me to pull that one up? [43:09] JD: No, you have that. We're getting derailed. Mark was hammered at. We were at an industry golf tournament that we sponsored. He grabbed the stage, grabbed the microphone and chanted to the audience, I say retire. What are you saying? [43:25] Justin: When I say retire, you say hollux. That's what it was. [43:27] Michael Kitces: Retire. [43:28] JD: Holl. [43:28] Michael Kitces: Here, let's watch it. [43:30] JD: Oh no, I did not plan this shit. She's shushing the audience. How does Brandon have and who say retire colic. [44:06] Michael Kitces: Retire colic. Retire colic. [44:10] JD: And the winner is. It's you got to be present. Okay, we can move on. Hey, this is why I prep stuff, Michael. [44:20] Mark: My goodness. Did you see Michael's response in the chat bar on ACP testing here? I wrote hahaha, Mega Backdoor Roth. And he's like, come on, I want to run into ACP testing. I get it. It's got to be five, eight. [44:37] JD: That's too. [44:38] Mark: That's too sick to you, Mr. Kitsis. [44:41] JD: Can Kitsis use acronyms in the chat bar? That should be a violation. [44:45] Michael Kitces: That's a violation. Oh, I feel like that should be permitted. [44:47] JD: No, it was not explained in the rules. No, he doesn't have to do that. Okay, let's move on to this deal. 401k pros, our industry. You kind of mentioned it earlier. I think we've done a good job and have been worked very hard at the accumulation phase of these participants life. Right. Motivating to put money in, save, get that glorious compounding. And then they get to retirement and we kind of shit the bed. Like we don't really have any solutions for them. [45:20] Michael Kitces: It's okay. We're happy to take all the. [45:21] JD: Right. And then we hand off to you. [45:24] Michael Kitces: Totally good with that. [45:25] JD: We had Matt Wolnowitz on the episode a few weeks ago and he's kind of heading up the Income America thing. So what has been our solution? It's been. Is he on there? [45:38] Michael Kitces: Yeah, yeah, he is. [45:38] JD: There he is. [45:39] Michael Kitces: He just said, I hope you say Income America. [45:42] JD: And so our solution has been like these kind of. Are you familiar with Income America Kitsis at all? I wouldn't. [45:47] Michael Kitces: No. No, I'm not. [45:47] JD: That's okay. Is guaranteed income kind of investment options inside the plan. You know, and we've worked really hard at trying to do stuff. They've failed in the past. We're thinking Wolney might be onto something new and better and a little bit [46:02] Michael Kitces: different for just putting. Putting annuitized guarantees inside of the K plan. To annuitize when you're retiring. [46:09] Mark: Well. [46:09] JD: And we hope to make them portable. Right. So they could take them with them. [46:12] Michael Kitces: Well, you can under secure act. [46:13] Justin: Yep. [46:14] JD: But I want your. Or I should say the planning community, the financial planners. How do you feel about us? I guess you just said it. You like it that we suck at it. How do you feel that we just have zero Solutions. And you have any advice for us and yeah, just give us your two cents. [46:36] Michael Kitces: Well, yeah, I mean, nice for us that we get to take a swing at the tom. At the rollovers, look at the. Well, so a few, a few of things I think crop up in this end. One, like I will say, you know, much love to Matt out there. Like, I'm not, I'm not bullish on annuities and 401k plans. I'm not bullish that they're going to suddenly catch fire on this. I don't think the employer liability concerns and the portability was the blocking point. The blocking point is people don't like to take their life savings and make it a liquid. I can do all the academic reasons about why annuitization is helpful. I've written some of those studies. But like the consumer psychology is really not good, to put it mildly. And frankly, at the end of the day, if anybody was that desperate for annuitizing a 401k balance, you could roll it over now and annuitize. You could have done that anytime for the past 30 years. And there is not only not been a stampede of rollovers out of 401k plans to annuitize them, but like the volume is basically non existent. So I'm just, I'm just not seeing it. [47:40] JD: This is going to be a very hard part of the show for Mr. Wolnowitz. He's really struggling at the keyboards right now, I'm sure. And I get it. It's not an annuity. He's going to. [47:51] Michael Kitces: Oh, okay. All right. It's. [47:52] JD: No, no, no, no, no. By the way, you know, more than I thought you knew. You nailed tons of how it works and what's going on. So you're pretty well versed in it. I just look at it and say and think it's gotta be really complicated for you financial planners to help someone at age 65 or whatever that is to try to get to their death, which you don't know when it's gonna happen and try to manage the markets and the ups and downs in the markets and how much equity exposure they're gonna have and at what rate are they gonna withdraw from that. And I mean, there's so many moving pieces that I think it's almost impossible for us to solve. And so we should be handing it off to your group. Well, I just want to know if there's any other thoughts around that. [48:41] Michael Kitces: Well, the second issue that I think really actually makes it much more problematic to at least to do this within the 401k plan environment without at least moving up to sort of this like Edelman personal capital style individual advice layer is for a lot of people, the retirement account isn't the only assets. Like it's not the only retirement asset. There's Social Security planning, there's housing wealth, there's other, there may be other investment accounts of any level or size, particularly for the ones that are more affluent where there's more money at stake to give advice in the first place. And it's like it just, it's problematic to try to do that within the environment of only being able to look with the 401k lens. To me, at a minimum, if you're going to do that, you have to actually get a more holistic advice offering in there. Not just because I'm trying to pound the table for holistic advice, but just not only are there more moving parts, but frankly, if you don't take into account the moving parts, the coordination of Social Security, the coordination with your other investment accounts, asset location, where to put things effectively, how to do the drawdown, sequencing across them on the independent advisor side, like I'm just going to sell against you and try to pull the clients directly by saying I've got a more, you know, sophisticated, customized, individualized solution. [49:53] JD: Don't raise your hand. [49:55] Mark: Put my hand down. [49:57] Michael Kitces: Damn. Hand down. [49:58] Mark: I was, I was. I think the majority of people that are going to choose some sort of income for life Solution inside the 401k are not people that have any other source of income beyond Social Security in retirement. Maybe you could argue they have a house that they've purchased outside of that. I think these are folks who have built up a small balance inside the 401k and they're looking at some stability knowing that when they step away from work they have ongoing income and stability [50:30] Michael Kitces: tends to be Social Security. Well, that's a good point. [50:33] Mark: That's the financial planning side. That's a very good point. But my argument would be, my argument for the solution would be most of those folks, if they don't get into something like this, they're going to be invested way too aggressive when they hit that retirement point. And one of the things I'm thankful for in this solution is that at least, much like a target date fund, for example, at least they're using some sort of metrics, age whatever it may be, to decrease their equity exposure as they get closer to the point of annuitizing. And I think that that's a big positive that others aren't going to take [51:09] JD: advantage of who's vegan. Go vegan, brah. What the. Oh, they're talking about hot dogs. Nevermind. Sorry, kids. Got distracted. [51:15] Michael Kitces: I was going to say, I mean, Chad, when you get down to the. Just the lower end of the income and wealth spectrum, I mean, at some point you get down to folks where their anchor is Social Security. The extent they've got a modest balance, the 401k plan, they tend not to use it for income at all. It's the lifetime emergency reserve. If anything bad in my life happens for the rest of my life, this 20 grand or 50 grand or $100,000 account is my only liquid resource to supplement my Social Security. So you have to actually get like, you have to get up some level of wealth to have enough financial wherewithal to say I can take a guaranteed layer that goes illiquid on top of my Social Security to lift up my standard of living and not be so illiquid. I can't pay my bills if I get sick or something bad happens. But if they get much higher than that, then it's like, well, let me show you all these other retirement liquidation strategies that don't necessarily require the annuity at all. And just it's a tough in between land in the independent advisor world. Well, even in the economics world, the economists are so mystified by this, they literally call it the annuity puzzle. Which is why every economic study shows the optimal strategy is to annuitize almost all of your net worth. And 2% of people actually do it in practice. And it just comes down to people's liquidity preferences. You know, it's someday like we'd like to talk about annuities in the industry is like, if you annuitize this, it can't be any worse than this because like we've guaranteed you an income floor. But from the average person's perspective, like, you know what happens if you're like retiring at 65 and you annuitize your life savings. Whatever your life looks like right now, this is the best it will ever, ever be. As good as it gets is right here today because you have just given up every possibility of like upside and hope in the rest. And you can't tell a retiree on the cusp of retirement what your life looks like today is the best it's ever going to get. So I have sympathy for some of what Matt's looking at. I'm seeing a little bit of the chat of it's retire when Aria and a couple others have put some products out that it wraps an annuity wrapper around an investment account without actually forcing you to give up the liquidity. Ruin contingent annuities and some of those structures. I do think, I guess getting to Matt's question, like, I think that helps some of it, but at least for the products I've seen on that end, because I get pitched on some of them as well. Like they're still fairly expensive. Like no knock on them. Just guaranteeing risk is expensive in a volatile investment. [53:47] JD: Yeah, it's a risk when you're the one guaranteeing it. [53:50] Michael Kitces: Well, particularly because if you're an annuity company and you guarantee everyone at the same time, if a bad market event happens, everybody makes a claim at the same time. Like it's the antithesis of risk pooling. Like annuities work because not everybody lives or dies at this. You know, not everybody dies at the same time. And it spreads out. Life insurance works the same way. Ruined contingent annuities are problematic because they concentrate the risk. When the market tanks, the annuity company has a claim from everyone at the same time. It's the same reason the variable annuity guarantees blew up in the financial crisis. [54:18] JD: I just want to be clear. Wolnowitz says it's 1.31 basis points all in go. We'll need to leave. Don't do this damage to yourself. [54:28] Michael Kitces: It's a better number. I'll give Matt credit. It's a better number than I've seen for some of the other products getting pitched. [54:32] JD: Chad, you got a question that it so had that you want to. [54:36] Mark: Yeah, it's so it brought this up in a conversation I had with them a while back, which is you're kind of, if I'm correct me if I'm wrong, but you're rebranding the whole financial planning to life planning. Is there not being personal those two terms, is there an actual difference between those two terms in your mind? [54:58] Michael Kitces: Like, I kind of go back and forth. I think I would lean towards the. Well, so there's a camp in our world that says life planning is just financial planning done right, done well. Where you get to the appropriate level of depth for a client's goals, dreams, hopes and wishes and really delve deeply enough for them. I think that's true and valid. But the reality is life planning conversations that they level they have is deeply time intensive work. And it's not something you can scale or fix with technology. It's just like if I'm going to convince a human being to view their Entire life in a different way and change their relationship with money after their entire lifetime. Like, that's a couple of conversations. In fact, that's probably like, a few years of financial life planning therapy, basically. Not to knock my friends into life planning, but, like, you get some deep, long, very personal conversations that stretch out over many, many meetings. And I love that. And I think that's a cool offering, and I'd love to see everybody give that. But I'm also just, like, a practical realist that, like, that just economically doesn't work, I think, to do in mass at that level. [56:03] JD: I think it was you and Carl. Would you classify this as life planning? Because this is outside of my normal stuff. I think I heard you guys say, like, one of the most impactful things that you could do for a client would be to, like, coach them to go ask for a raise. Oh, yeah, I think. And I was. That really kind of blew my mind. Like, I never thought of that. Like a 401k guy. Because, by the way, our employers might get mad at us. Right? Our clients like telling our participants to go ask who pays our bills to pay them more. But it made a lot of sense. That's timeless. Can I get a raise? Yeah. You need to go get some coaching from a financial planner to tell you how to ask it the right way, Mark. [56:42] Michael Kitces: All right, Michael, can I get some coaching? Well, you need to start with the value brought to the business over the past year and the economic impact that it's had on the growth of the business. [56:53] Justin: And I don't know what any of that. Mark, you're not getting a raise. [56:57] Michael Kitces: That's not going well for you. [57:01] Mark: I have sponsors on a robe. [57:03] Michael Kitces: Does that help? A little bit. A little bit. [57:08] JD: Michael, I'll let you mull on this a little bit. We're gonna end this show in about three minutes. We're gonna do a little chat bar champion here. So think about someone in that chat bar that you've really liked. But we do do an after show where we stick around and talk stuff. Now, you do not have to stick around. You're a big shot, you know, famous dude. So you got a family. You can take off. And then what we do is we just all talk about you and the chat bar talks about you. It'll be a lot of fun because I like that that's a good time. Or you can hang out and we can talk about some other stuff. We got some other questions for you. The audience can throw some questions at you, but we'll see. It's up to you, buddy. [57:46] Justin: You've never afforded any guests that ability. You can leave if you want. [57:49] JD: I'm trying to. I'm trying to move the after show. Massage it a little bit. I think it needs to redirect. Chad, bar champion. Let's find one. Let's vote. I'm going to go straight to the sick guy. Chad's not feeling so well, everyone. He's got a little bit of the Rona. So Chad, he doesn't have Rona. He's got cold. [58:08] Mark: I've already been tested and it's a negative. I had a few names written down. I think that Three piece. It was between Brad and Three Piece. Three piece had a solid night. Three piece is my voice. My. My vote. That's Tom Condren. [58:25] JD: Yes. Nice Three piece. Justin, who's your vote? [58:30] Justin: It was tough. He was on there sharing. Daniela were on there. All feature, all past winners. Right? [58:37] Mark: I don't think Tom's won. I don't think Brad has won either. Oh, no, Brad did. [58:41] JD: Whoa, guys, guys, guys, don't pick. Don't be like picking people because they haven't won before. You pick the best person in the chat bar champion. I don't care if Hackler wins. [58:51] Michael Kitces: I'm going to. No sympathy votes. [58:53] Justin: Yeah, Daniela. Oh, well, Mark just picked Sherry then. [58:59] JD: Don't tell him who to pick. [59:01] Michael Kitces: Yeah, shut up, dude. I was. I was all for Daniela. And you know what? [59:08] Justin: I don't really care. [59:08] Michael Kitces: Daniela gets two votes from us, so she gets double. [59:13] JD: Mr. Kitsis, who's your vote for chat bar champion? [59:17] Michael Kitces: Oh, man, I. You know, I was sitting right there between Daniela and Tom as well. That's tough. That's tough. I'm. I'm. Oh, I think I got to give out the. Give the shout out to Daniela for the callback on $300 Wells Fargo financial plans from the 1990s, which is a beautiful bit of financial planning industry history. [59:43] JD: Good one. There's a couple of people making some last minute home run swings, which I like. I'm actually, I'm unlike you wussies. I'm going with Greg Greenfield. He's solid. He deserves it. [59:55] Mark: It's great every week. [59:57] JD: And just because he's won a lot doesn't mean you leave him off the list. Okay, those are the finalists. And now it's you out there that get a vote. I think I saw Kate Clark. Kate, were you here for the intro? Did you. Did you hear my accent at all? Because it was kind of motivated by you a little bit. Oh, she didn't [1:00:18] Mark: have to go back [1:00:18] JD: to YouTube and watch the replay because it's good. Go. Blah blah blah. Let's see. I can. I'm seeing the results come in. You guys are not. And someone's walking away with it. Sorta. Yeah. [1:00:33] Mark: Gotta be Chad's Rona. Chad's Rona's running. [1:00:35] JD: It's Daniela Moises with ff. Way to go, Daniela. [1:00:42] Justin: How do you say that with an accent Times three. [1:00:45] JD: Did she. She won twice already, I think. Was that what time? [1:00:49] Mark: No, he's saying that like three of [1:00:51] Michael Kitces: us nominated three people. [1:00:52] JD: It's a three Pete. She's saying three Pete. [1:00:54] Justin: Oh, and three Pete. Jesus. [1:00:56] JD: Wow. Solid. [1:00:57] Michael Kitces: Has she received a single thing in [1:01:00] Justin: the mail yet though? [1:01:01] JD: I don't know. I've sent. You know much money I've spent on frickin retireholic schwag sending out. It's putting me out of business. [1:01:09] Michael Kitces: We could work on your financial plan around that. If you need some help. [1:01:12] JD: I'm gonna. I'm end it with this. You just see that character? What's that actor's name? [1:01:16] Mark: That wasn't J.D. carlson. [1:01:20] JD: I was in Maui. Oh, sorry, Mark. I know I'm not supposed to talk about when I was in Maui. I was in Maui. No. And I was. I was walking down the sidewalk by the beach and there's this drunk dude, he was like 64 and he was with his hot wife. And he was like a really attractive, tall drunk guy. And he looked at me, pointed at me and he started laughing and he goes, there's the guy from Hangover. That's the guy from Hangover. Ha ha ha ha ha. And by the way, he would beat my ass. But he was pretty drunk and I was like, you better be fucking talking about Bradley Cooper, bitch. Like, better be talking about Bradley Cooper. I don't think he was. I don't think he was. Okay, Michael, thanks for. Thanks for joining us. We are going to head into the after show. We will see if Michael sticks around. I don't know, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he does. Brandon, can you play us out with a little bit of music? And thanks to all you for tuning in. We appreciate it. [1:02:11] Justin: Why don't we pick the music anymore? [1:02:13] JD: Good to see you again because Brandon's terrible.