NAPA Summit Recap: Smarter Defaults & AI's Impact on Advisors

[0:11] JD: Hello everyone, and welcome to the show. It's me, it's the robe, and it's Justin in his. I don't know, I don't, I didn't, I don't have a song. Let's go straight to the headline. [0:25] Chad: Thank God. [0:28] JD: Shalomo, Shalomo, Shalomo. I'm jealous of that first name. Shlomo Benartzi makes a call for smart defaults. Yes, this comes from the national association of Plan Advisors 401k summit in San Diego, California. [0:45] Mark: Did anybody know that that was going on? If you, if you went onto LinkedIn at all, like, because I had no idea. [0:51] JD: No, yeah, I will say I, I, [0:55] Mark: I do have to make a little bit of a comment because we used to give Chad about this, like when we would go do retireaholics events, he would go crazy on Instagram and then like, it would never happen. When in his personal life. [1:09] JD: Right. [1:10] Mark: There are a lot of people who attend this show who don't post anything on LinkedIn, but boy, when they go to those conferences, they are just firing away. [1:21] JD: I think my entire, not entire, but you're right, Mark. Like 90% of my LinkedIn kind of flow down is all that stuff. [1:29] Mark: But see, part of me, that's my, this is my defense mechanism to be like, man. But at the same time I'm like, you know, sad because we weren't there. [1:38] JD: We're going to talk about it later. We're going to talk about it later. I looked like a lot of happy, happy vibes going on from all the cool pictures and everything. Yeah, I'm definitely feel bad that I didn't get to see the Nevin and Fred live podcast stream. That would have been a goal of mine. Nevin says it was amazing. He's not, he's not biased or anything. It was the best. Okay, great. [2:06] Justin: I think with them, our chances of getting invited to Napa just really went down the drain. [2:10] JD: Yeah. Wait till after today. We might never be invited back again. [2:14] Mark: Sorry, I'm pulling it up right now. [2:18] JD: Who by the way, is starting to warm up to me a little bit. He never responded to me before. Now we've got a little conversation happening in LinkedIn and we, I'm going to, you know, I'm working my angles to get them on the pot. He says, look, defaults are great. Secure 2.0. There he is. I love that picture. Secure 2.0, you know, phenomenal. This automatic enrollment thing, automatic increasing, these are all pro Shlomo types of things. But now he's kind of Hitting us with what he kind of titles secure 3.0 and the fact that we need to have. Here, I'll just read this. There's a couple articles. There's one at Nevin's site there and there's one at 4K Specialist magazine and the 4K Specialist mag one. The opening paragraph goes as such, if setting every community up for retirement, what's the end of it? I forget 2.0 was about leaking behavioral economics. The default with its provision requirement, automatic enrollment and the new retirement plans. Secure 3.0 needs to be about making smart defaults. This comes straight from Shlomo. So Mark, does Shlomo believe that the current defaults are dumb and what do you think he means by smarter defaults? Because I have an idea on the spot. [3:50] Mark: No, I don't. Okay, again you try to make me say something I shouldn't. But no, he doesn't think they're dumb. I just think he thinks that they can be improved. I'll take the politically correct way out of that. [4:03] JD: And he thinks it can be improved because we live in a world now where we have access to participant data. And so I didn't hear him speak. I'm just reading from this article and some of his comments. But what he's saying is, hey, if we've got individual data on people, maybe we can make some defaults for some people and some other defaults for some other people. I'll give an example if. And this is from, from this article. If you're a participant who has a lot of credit card debt or just debt in general, and maybe there's not even a matching contribution at your 401k plan, maybe you should have a different default in terms of putting in 3% versus 7% versus 10 than someone else who doesn't have any debt and has a company match. You see how they. [4:51] Mark: So a customized and strategic default, not just a one size fits all default. [4:59] JD: Makes sense. [5:00] Mark: Yeah. [5:00] Justin: So, yeah, I mean, so long as, I mean that's a slippery slope. So long as the participants educated on it and they know what they're doing, they're doing kind of and they fit in that category. But can't you see a scenario where, I mean, I'm a fan of it, don't get me wrong, I like it actually. But where someone, you know, just says, okay, this is the default I'm going to be in and completely that up and tries to blame their, their plan sponsor or financial advisor or anything like that. [5:23] JD: Well, that's what I. Go ahead. [5:25] Mark: I was going to say we're, you're probably going to go a different angle. But what, what happens when some defaults are more expensive than others? Then we're going to get into this whole idea of fees again. And how is that fair? One versus if you're put into this, where you could have gone here and it's, it could create some, some complexities. [5:49] JD: Seems like from a fiduciary standpoint, kind of a dangerous path to head down. Right. If you're gonna do different things for different participants, I would think you'd be putting your ass hanging out in the someone to critique those and say that you were wrong in some way. Whereas it seems safer. I'd be curious like what if that was discussed for anyone that was there, that's in the chat. But right now like the, the fiduciary liability around smarter defaults. So yeah, I worry about that. Shlomo also talked about that. Hey, 3%. Great. Actually, I don't know if he said that, but he. Because he says look, if you auto enroll people at 7%, his research says that they still will stay in. Like they will not leave at 7%. He even goes so far as to say if you put them in a 10%, they'll, they'll stay in. And so let me ask you guys this. Like, okay, Shlomo, that's great, but does that mean that that's what we should be doing is automatically enrolling someone for 10 of their pay because they might not back out, but maybe they can't pay rent next month or some shit like. That's a pretty big number to be auto enrolling someone in. You're a man of the people, Roby. Come on. If I automatically enrolled you at 10%. Gotta feel a bit invasive. No. [7:11] Mark: Well, again, I, Yes, I, I speak the word of the people, jd But I also am a person who believes that you need to be responsible and accountable for every aspect of your life. So if you are auto enrolling me at 10, I should be paying attention. And if that doesn't make sense for me, I should be adjusting that down. I don't, I don't see a problem. The percentage to me is irrelevant. I don't care what people do. If that's it is what it is. I. Great research shows the higher you go, the opt out rates still are fairly low. Fine, whatever. But I'm not. Yeah, I don't. [7:46] JD: But the problem with that concept is, Mark, is that I think in Shlomo's research what they've found is most. [7:53] Mark: Yeah, Nevin we're very clear of that, buddy. We're not idiots. [7:57] JD: I. But here goes. Devin. But they can opt out. But, but what Shlomo tells us is they don't, they won't. So what, what that means is that they're not doing what Mark said. They're not looking at it. They're not assessing their own personal finances. They're just procrastinating and not doing jack shit. And that's where these behavioral finance people attack, you know, And I know they're doing good. I'm not. They're not the evil people. [8:20] Justin: Okay, but hold on here. [8:21] Speaker E: We're. [8:22] Justin: We're trying to, to bridge the gap here. [8:24] JD: Right? [8:24] Speaker E: Don't. [8:25] Justin: Changes like that actually helps do that. Right. Especially if we're worried about what Brian's talking about as an industry trying to bridge that gap. They're going to learn, just like you're [8:34] Chad: going to learn not to touch a, [8:35] Justin: you know, child learns not to touch a hot plate, you know, so what would you say? [8:39] Mark: You're not supposed to touch a child. [8:41] Chad: That issue. [8:42] JD: Don't touch a child with a hot plate. Fair enough. But let's not be insensitive. Who is. Who is. [8:49] Mark: Again, I'll just be honest. I don't, I didn't read the article, but who is Shlomo calling out here? Like, who is he pinpointing to be the advocates for sort of navigating this, this smarter Default, that kind of thing? [9:07] JD: Shlomo and another dude, someone helped me out in the chat bar, were instrumental in creating automatic enrollment as a thing way back in the day, let's say. Thank you, Thaler. Thaler, back in the, like, late 90s or whatever. And so the industry, the government, they look to him and his research. He's. He's also a big part of everything that we've been doing with, on my enrollment and the increases and financial wellness and trying to talk to participants. So he's just one of those, sorry for the word, thought leaders that everyone in the industry looks to. So when secure, do I have to drink? You know, when Secure 2.0 comes out and, and he looks at it and he wraps his brain around it all, he starts thinking about what's next. That's all, what's next? You know. Right. [9:51] Mark: But I'm saying, like, hey, I want smaller default, smarter defaults. Is he saying that's going to be the role of mutual fund companies? Is he looking at them to say, hey, you guys need to come together and start figuring out better ways, better investment offerings versus looking at, like, Advisors [10:10] JD: or I think, I think he wants advisors, record keepers and the industry as a whole to be like, hey, let's do this. I want to bring this up to you. Okay, let's say you believe in Shlomo, like he's a smart guy. Everyone in the chat bar believes he's a smart guy except for when he's choosing glasses. And so he says to you, hey, look, I'm just going to go with 8%. You should auto enroll at 8%. [10:34] Mark: I thought that was Chad at first, to be honest. [10:38] Chad: I can wish. [10:39] JD: He also believes that the auto increase of like 1% every year, every 365 days should actually be quicker. Like he's like, he's talking smack about like go 2% every 90 days or something. So imagine you're an advisor. [10:53] Justin: I think it's a bit much. [10:54] JD: And you walk into some of your biggest clients and you say, hey everyone, fiduciary review today. Great. I've been hanging out with this Shlomo guy and here's the smart thing to do. We're going to auto enroll everyone at 8% and we're going to auto increase them at. I won't go to 2 at 1% every three months. What do you think? How do you think your clients would react to that? [11:16] Mark: They would, they would panic. [11:19] Justin: I think the difference, the administrative nightmares with that. [11:23] Mark: Yeah, they would say, cool, are you going to do that for me? Exactly. [11:29] JD: But hey, go ahead. [11:31] Chad: You know, I never go on this side, but I'll go to the other side of it. I think if you're backing it with behavioral finance and you're talking about the implications that will have on their retirement outcomes and you're positioning this proper education that, hey, it's a new way of thinking. And I imagine we all said this when he rolled out back in the early days with auto enroll and auto escalation at the beginning, haters are going to hate. But I think that if you're an advisor looking to differentiate and you believe in this, find a way to support it within your practice and pitch it. [12:01] JD: I should know better. Chad Bar or anyone here, let me know, like, where does the, so where does the auto increase stop at? Does it stop at 10% or somewhere north of that? [12:13] Justin: In the legislation, 2.0 dropped at 15 now. [12:15] JD: Which is it, web? 15 again? A lot more 15 now. So yeah, I don't know. I, I feel like that's pretty intense, bro. I think if you take someone who's making $50,000 a year and you believe that they're going to procrastinate, not do anything. And you auto enroll them at say 7% and you increase them every three months like Shlomo wants you to, to get them to like fucking 15 did. [12:41] Chad: When I read that, I don't know if I interpreted increasing it like every three months. I interpreted that the first increase should be that quickly. [12:51] JD: Oh, interesting. [12:53] Justin: I interpreted how JD said like quarterly. [12:56] JD: You're just saying 365. Too slow. They haven't confirmed what is. Chad's right. Chad's right. So just a quick one, Chad. Well, that's silly to me. That's stupider. Like just put them in at 9%, then don't start them at 7. Like that's dumb. That makes no sense at all. You're gonna kill someone at a percent and then three months later you're gonna up it. Just up it the first time. You dumb. That makes no sense, no sense. [13:22] Mark: I, I agree 100% with that. [13:24] Chad: I think his thought there is if [13:25] Justin: he thoughts just to kind of ease into it and then get amused. [13:28] Mark: Chad, we don't want, we don't want logical thoughts. Please stop talking. We're done. [13:32] Chad: Just was getting logical. If you got 90 days to opt out, I think he's saying if they don't opt out within 90 days, like that's go in at 6% or 7. If they don't opt out within 90 days, then bump and bump it. [13:44] JD: Okay. [13:44] Chad: Because they've chosen not to opt out. [13:48] JD: That's a nice try to save there. But that's still kind of it's it [13:51] Chad: also, that also seems worse to me because they, they didn't opt out because they were okay with six. So now you're going to jump them to eight. And now they can't use the 90 day pullback provision at that point because they're outside of 90 days. [14:04] JD: I don't know. [14:04] Chad: I will tell you that as much. [14:06] JD: I'm not saying it's right, but we can put this subject to bed here. But of the fiduciary review meetings that I sit on and I sit on some bigger client ones, some of those clients are still struggling with automatic enrollment in terms of whether they pull the trigger. And I had one big client that was struggling with 3%. Now, mind you, the advisor and I went hard and strong and told them why. But I just think, I don't think plan sponsors line up with us industry people in terms of what they think. So. And I realize that that should be our job to teach them. And yeah, we went hard and Strong is it to teach them and, and, and show them what's right and show them that, hey, people really do need to be saving 10 or more of their income. I totally get all that. I'm just saying, like, it doesn't necessarily line up with. [14:54] Justin: It's going to become the norm. It obviously has to. [14:57] JD: We'll see. [14:58] Justin: So I think we're worried about something that we really have no control over now at all. [15:02] Chad: Obviously battle in the past has always been what's. [15:05] Justin: They're not going to know any better in five years. [15:07] JD: Yeah, fair enough. And like, like Nevin said, they can always opt out. [15:13] Mark: No, he, he yelled that at us in all caps. [15:15] JD: All caps. [15:16] Chad: Yeah. [15:17] Mark: He's very angry right now. [15:19] JD: I sent the show notes to Brandon in all caps today and he goes, can you. I'm trying. I want to put these out on like YouTube and whatever. Can you not send them in all caps? And I go, just go, just go ask chat. GPT. I'll drink to put it back from all caps into regular. And he wrote me back and he goes, I tried. And it put it all in lowercase of dumb. Pancakes. Huh? We had last week. [15:47] Mark: Do I, do I have an old one? I pulled up the last one I had. [15:50] JD: Good. It's good. I like pancakes. Brian Graff. Brian Graff. But a beer. But a beer. Let's see. The national association of Plan Advisors has an article titled Graph Battles Ahead Over Future of America's Retirement System. We talked about this two weeks ago. He does this big keynote. I think I can call it the keynote. Calls it from the Hill to the Summit. That's creative. I like that. Applaud for that. That's a great little podcast. [16:21] Mark: Wait, are you, are you being serious? [16:23] JD: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. To the summit. I think that's pretty. [16:27] Justin: What do you think about it, Mark? [16:29] Mark: I was just curious. [16:32] JD: He. Do not be mistaken. Brian Graf is a phenomenal speaker. So I'm sure he did a great job. I wasn't there. I've had some people told me that it was a good deal, but what did he do? He's. This seems to be an MO for him a lot. Oh, that's got to be a thing. [16:48] Chad: Yeah. What did you say Operanda or something? [16:51] JD: He scared the out of everyone. Hackler told me he was scared to the chilled to the bones. [17:00] Mark: That's not surprising. [17:01] JD: He's basically saying, look, you've got these, you've got this bipartisan group of politicians supported by and Mark, you said this last week. I laughed, but the, the Napster guys in there somewhere in some association that's kind of helping push this along, which I still think is funny. Sean Parker. But anyways, you got this group that, that Brian seems to be very, very concerned about that wants to implement this, you know, government run future of the retirement program which would not have ARISSA liability. You know, I'll drink would, would be run by the government. So it would be like, I don't know, super low cost in some sense. And then worse in my mind you'd get this like government match or something along with it. We've talked about this, but now here is graph up in front of you know, the biggest conference in our industry telling everyone to watch out for this. Now is this just what he does? I mean Nevin's here. I'm sure she's going to say absolutely not. And let me be clear before I say something stupid, which I probably will love the American Retirement association, love everything they do for us. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I'm not just trying to kiss ass. But isn't this Brian grass job to keep us scared. So we keep funneling money to their, their pack. That's got to be an acronym. Sorry. And like supporting him and, and, and, and suckling on the teat of the American retirement. [18:38] Mark: Well jd I never thought of it that way. But now that you've said it now I think. Yeah. [18:44] Justin: That foil hat anymore. [18:46] Mark: Yeah, I know, right. I think you need to take a [18:48] Justin: different approach on yourself. [18:49] Mark: Yeah. [18:50] JD: Any thoughts? [18:52] Chad: If they're not trying to give us the truth, which this is, which happens to be scary, then they're not doing their job. And so I don't, I don't necessarily agree with the point but I do think that this is a relevant topic. Grant's threw in the chat, the chat didn't we have this 10 years ago? And I said yeah, and that's why we need to be addressing it again now. We need to continue to voice our opinion as to why this should be privatized and, and not a public sector product. [19:20] JD: What would, what would everyone say to this concept? JD sleeps well at night, he puts his head on his pillow. Not worried about the future of 401k plans because fidelity, Vanguard, Initial, Initial, Morgan, Charles Schwab, Wall street in general, just all these just deep pocketed Fortune 500 financial institutions that make so much money from the 401k retirement plan system. Don't they have power in Washington? Don't these lobbyists or these people like fucking. There's no way on Earth, they would let the government strip that business model away from them. Like, is that weird for me to say? [20:13] Chad: Not at all. And Webby made that point in the chat bar that the mutual fund companies who would go under if the 401k space went away have a lot of power too. And Nevin followed it right up with, yeah, but there's a lot of money backing this effort now and there wasn't 10 years ago. And so I think we're going to see a, a massive fight over this topic. [20:34] JD: Nevin in the chat bar answered what I thought would be the typical answer, which is, oh, well, we'll still get to invest the money from that plan. Well, yeah, maybe, but just some of them. We don't know what that looks like. I definitely don't think. I know. You know this, Devin. They don't want that outcome. They don't want the outcome. You're talking about where they'd be running the money for the government plan because that could just be slivers compared to what they're doing now. And who wins those different. So anyways, I just. To me, I really feel like there's some truth in what I just said. Now, do I want the power of all those firms and Brian Graf, the American Retirement association going to bat for me? Absolutely, I do. And I will say this. I was literally in the ocean thinking about this and the first thought I had was, do we need to support them and, like, try to get more money their way? Do I need to go sit and throw five grand at this or whatever? Like, Like. So I. It's got me thinking about that kind of. I'm sure they're well funded. I don't know, but I'm. But, well, tell me. That's my public service announcement right now. [21:34] Chad: Is the thought that a public offering is going to bridge the coverage gap because it's going to be mandatory. [21:43] Justin: Yeah. [21:43] JD: And you, you brought up coverage gap the same time Nevin put it in. And that's good because we hadn't talked about that yet. Is this Nevin? [21:50] Mark: Nevin feeds Chad all the information. [21:52] Chad: Yeah, he's in my other ear right now. [21:55] Justin: This is what you should add. [21:56] JD: Is this a pressure moment for us as an industry and secure 2.0 to, like, work? Like, is this how we save 401k? We go back in there in a year and say, look, we're crushing it on the coverage gap? Like all these. We don't need you to help. I did see some of that and Brian's comments in the writings, but But [22:19] Chad: I guess what I'm getting at is if they think they can do it better, what is it that they're going to do different? And the only thing I can come up with at this point, and I'm not nearly as smart as everyone else, is that they're going to make it a mandate. It's going to be forced and you can still do that and leave the private sector in place if the effort is to bridge the coverage. Coverage gap. We don't have to try to take this in house with a group of generations of Americans that are fearful of Social Security to begin with and the fact that we're leaving that in the government's hands. I don't think the average American wants this to go into a federal system. [22:56] JD: I would almost like to see. Maybe this is what you're talking about, Chad, is take what happened in California and just make it nationally. Like, go ahead, have a national thing, but just allow for. But that's the problem is, and that's why they're upset, is we need to make it somewhat equivalent like that. That free match thing, that's going to be the death of us, bro. Like, that's going to be the death of us. If Cal Savers, if Calceavers was giving California money, government money as a match to people, you guys would be getting your asses handed to you, Right? [23:28] Chad: Well, they are right now. They're doing it essentially for the first three years with a credit of $1,000 per. Per employee. But. But no. And Bill put another point in the chat in the chat bar, which is to escape the Employee Retirement Income Security act and the potential testing. So that is something they could do differently. They could say, screw all that liability, come over here and it'll be cheaper. We'll cover your match and you don't have to worry about testing issues. [23:53] JD: I'm not so certain. [23:55] Justin: What are the limits going to be? Is it going to be attractive to them still? I mean, do we know any of that? [23:59] Chad: No idea. [24:00] JD: No. They have no idea what. But yeah, they're not just in. [24:03] Mark: Aren't most things that are free pretty [24:05] JD: attractive if they're going to go that far? It's not going to look. [24:09] Justin: We're paying for it. [24:10] JD: It's not going to look like some individual retirement account clone. It's. It's going to have normal limits. [24:15] Justin: And you think it's going to be beefed up. [24:18] JD: The whole ERISA thing, I get sort of. But I don't think a lot of flower shops and auto body shops that would be Forced to set up a plan, are really worried about their fiduciary responsibility, to be quite honest with you. Like, first of all, we all know that that's. There's no, there's no lawsuits in that space. And I just, I just think that's a little bit of an industry myopic kind of look at it. I get it. It won't. I understand that something, but I don't think it's that big of a thing. I just think it would be something that would be low cost. So it'd be really affordable if not free. I mean, if they're going to give you a match, it's probably going to make the whole thing free in some weird way. So anyways, I'm too long. I'm scared. I'm totally scared. So we'll keep. I'll send some money to Butterbeer, like pronto. Not that it'll help out. They get all kinds Butterbeer. [25:15] Chad: Yummy. [25:18] JD: Okay, what else we got going on here? I saw a post From Webby on LinkedIn and an article on retirement income. I know, I know. We've talked about this retirement income stuff before. The title of the article is Some thoughts about Retirement Income Solutions. Yes. From the National Association Plan Advisors Foreign K Summit. Looks like we got Bonnie Trichel up on stage. Some other people. Webby's post. Let me pull it up here. Webby. Oh no, I lost it. I'll do it from memory. Webby said that he was worried about the push to make guaranteed income a qualified default investment alternative. I would like to circle back to a concept that is now becoming crystal clear to me. If you see incomes, guaranteed income solutions, pushing towards making it a default of some kind. I just want to one more time say it. Oh yeah, duh. Makes sense. They realize that's the only way they're going to get any traction. Because we've talked about this before, right? If you're going to try to educate people and try to stand in a room with 75 participants and teach them about this guaranteed income solution that they can choose, you're going to fall flat on your face in failure. [26:42] Speaker F: And. [26:42] JD: And you're starting to figure that out as an industry again. We already figured it out the first time. And so now you're realizing the only way for you to succeed is to force people into this thing. And while webbies LinkedIn post. He said that scared him. That scares me too. I think that's total bullshit. And I love Wolnowitz and I don't know who's Here tonight. That's a big guaranteed income family. I get it. Yes. You ask participants, do they want to have a guaranteed income in their plan? Do plan sponsors want to have a guaranteed on their plan? Yeah. When you ask them simple questions like that, their answer is going to be yes. Because anyone would answer yes to that. Whether it actually fits in this world in the way that you're proposing it, I'm not so sure. These days, I'm not so sure it's the right thing. And if, and if it's not the right thing because people won't sign up for it. And no matter how hard you try to educate them, pivoting to. Pivot, pivoting to. Making it automatic. [27:43] Justin: You gotta be. [27:44] JD: Tell me you got it is in my mind just shameful like that. You don't do that. That's a bunch of. [27:50] Mark: I think they need to start with eliminating the word guaranteed. I'm not gonna lie. [27:56] Chad: That's the selling point right there. [27:58] Mark: But when, when, when our trust and how we're compared in our, in our, you know, industry. So low. The minute you start saying guarantee, you're like, you're just lying to me right off the bat. You're trying to trick me, aren't you? [28:12] JD: Branding. Yeah, like the branding of it. [28:15] Chad: J.D. let me, let me ask you a question on this. Do you think for, let's just segment a group of people, the average 401k participant that is north of 50 years old. Do you think that a guaranteed solution like this is good for them? [28:34] JD: Yes. [28:36] Chad: Okay, so if we believe that, then why wouldn't we want it to be some sort of a default for that segment of people? If we believe it's the right thing for them, why wouldn't we try to [28:47] Mark: force slo mo agree that this is a smarter default? [28:52] JD: I think Shlomo is a fan of. Yeah. Guaranteed income in, in a process. I don't know that for a fact, but everything would add up that he would be. I like the way you position that, Chad. And I. I guess maybe what I'm saying is I'm not totally against. Because it's a big decision to, to add an annuity type, guaranteed type thing to your investment portfolio like that. To me, that's a big decision. There's additional fees attached to it. There's a lot of like, kind of pros and cons to, to me, it's just like, man, you need to just make it an option and you need to educate people and understand that you're never going to get the lion's share of this and you're only going to get a small percentage of people that want to use it. [29:43] Chad: Greg just says it's and my son just walked in the room so I can't use the full language. But it's expensive. And my thought with that is if we only get a small sliver into it, it's going to continue to be expensive because there's no economies of scale there. I don't think in the solutions that I've seen recently versus how it was structured five years ago with some of these solutions that it is nearly as expensive as it once was. [30:08] Mark: No. [30:09] Chad: And so I don't think that that argument of that it's the cost of a traditional annuity, that it's got that [30:15] JD: overhead or Chad expense is not just the cost of the product. Expense is also the net of growth of the investments and whatever. So you can't just go, oh, it's, it's 40 basis points. [30:29] Chad: No, for sure. And they're making massive spreads on it most of the time. That's why the fund families like it. That's why these companies offering these solutions like it. I get all of that. But if we're saying it's right for them to get a guarantee at that point, then then I don't see what's wrong with us trying to say we need to get it in the hands of more people and the accounts of more people. And so using targeted qualified default investment alternatives for the people that it fits in. I'm in. I think that that's perfectly acceptable. [30:59] JD: Here we go again though, with the like the fiduciary responsibility aspect of oh, if you're 62 and you have north of $250,000, we will automatically default you into the guaranteed income whatever. Like that's got its own cracks in it of like for sure. It does feel like it's not so good. I will tell you this. A small birdie has private messaged me and LinkedIn telling me that a lot of these firms are gaining traction in terms of contracts with record keepers. So even like Woolney's Income America, I believe is is actually making a lot of deals with record keepers and getting placed on their platforms. But again, I, I don't think that that's the answer that they need. Just because you get on the platform doesn't mean people are going to invest in it. So I guess my only takeaway from this would just be put on your your, your don't have your beer goggles on when you're looking at these things Trying to talk to you about being the qualified default investment alternative. Because the conspiracy tinfoil hat guy in me thinks that's their only option to make some money off this thing. And that's, that's their pivot. That's what they're going to. They hadn't originally said they're going to do that. [32:16] Chad: Hey, J.D. on topic, off topic. And I don't know the answer to this one. These guaranteed solutions, do they have market value adjustments if the plans move, if they're leaving? [32:29] JD: I think they can all be set up differently, but I don't. [32:33] Mark: It's a good job. Not acronym in that, because I know you wanted to. [32:36] Chad: It's a. I mean, it's a conversation in every single takeover plan. Right? [32:40] JD: Right now. [32:40] Chad: Every single one. And so my thought is if these things do take off and they start to gather significant assets and planes are going to move and I know we're trying to make them portable, but they're not really portable right now. Are we going to see some massive adjustments? [32:54] JD: If they had those, if they do have those embedded in them, that would put fuel to the fire of being against. Against this kind of. Right. That's the last thing you want to see is, oh, you can't leave because you're going to be hit with this big penalty. How about we play a new game like the old days? Like the old days when Brandon would come up with the games and because he's a smart guy. And we're going to talk about AI in a little. Fuck. Oh God. In a little bit. And so Brandon has put together some photographs and you all out there in the audience, you can play along, right? [33:37] Mark: So I don't that what I'm hearing is Brandon didn't do it. He just typed something in and something else did it for him. [33:43] JD: Sort of. Well, maybe. So I'm going to show you group groups of two of pictures and you're going to vote which one is the one created by artificial intelligence and which one is actually a photo. And everyone out there, you can play along as well too. Okay, Brandon, this was the first genre. Okay. Little wooden dolls. Little wooden dolls. Here is what we will call photograph a. Little wooden dolls. Now show us photograph B. This is B. Which one of these is real and which one is. Is generated by Terminator Robot. [34:23] Chad: You want to say it out loud or no? [34:25] Justin: I reversed A is fake. B is real. [34:31] Chad: I'm saying A is real. B is fake. [34:33] JD: And I believe Brandon B is real. [34:37] Mark: I'll just show the one that is. [34:39] JD: That is AI. [34:40] Mark: Afterwards, so. [34:41] JD: Okay. [34:42] Mark: Okay, this is the A. [34:48] Chad: I didn't think I. It looked to me like this. [34:51] Mark: It's way too clean. It's clean and the colors are good. [34:55] JD: Vincento got it right. Okay, next one. Froggies. Little froggies. This frog. [35:03] Mark: That's real. That's real. [35:04] Chad: I gotta move like a chat frog. [35:07] JD: The next frog. [35:08] Mark: That's real. No, that's. [35:09] Justin: Oh, yeah, for sure. [35:10] Mark: First one's real. [35:11] JD: I'm with you guys. It's a. It's got to be A. That's. That's a fake. [35:18] Chad: So that's the fake one. [35:18] JD: Yeah, yeah. Okay. We got that one right. Got that one right. [35:21] Chad: I can tell you what gave it away. [35:23] JD: What is it about it? It almost looks like the lighting is just too perfect. [35:28] Justin: Subjects. [35:29] JD: Okay. Okay. It looks mystical for me. [35:31] Justin: Yeah, that's what I. Yeah, you can create that in a photo for sure, but it's got to be Photoshop. [35:36] JD: There's something about it, though. Okay, next one. I don't know how many we have, but. Ooh. In the water. [35:46] Mark: That's real. [35:46] Justin: Gotta be. [35:47] JD: I think that's real, too. I think that's real. [35:49] Justin: Okay, look at the. Yeah, look at the snorkel. [35:51] JD: The next water one. Yeah, right? [35:55] Justin: Oh, damn. [35:56] Mark: I'm sticking with it. Yeah. I think the first one. [36:01] Justin: I need to see the water. [36:02] JD: I'm with you. A Israel sample says A is real. Yes. [36:07] Chad: Yeah, see, it was a little blurry. [36:10] JD: I mean, it's good, but you can tell. Okay. All right, I think we got another one. Yeah. [36:13] Chad: I mean, if we weren't trying to compare, I would not. [36:16] JD: That looks real to me. That looks real. Woman staring at mountains. [36:22] Mark: Bring it closer again. [36:24] JD: Yeah, I still. I'm going. All right. [36:25] Mark: A is real. [36:27] Justin: Israel, [36:30] JD: everybody. Yeah, he should. Yes. Okay. It's not that hard. One more. [36:37] Chad: I mean, we only have two that we're comparing, but not that hard. [36:42] JD: Oh, surfer guys. Okay. [36:45] Chad: Jd, back in the day, freshly shaved. [36:50] JD: I can get deep on this. [36:51] Mark: Yeah, that's not real. [36:55] JD: I'll tell you why it's not real. One is. I have no idea what that guy's wearing. Is that an Adidas thing or something? Okay. [37:02] Chad: Yeah. Jay's gonna. The wetsuit. [37:06] Mark: Yeah, the first one is fake. [37:08] Chad: Yeah. [37:11] JD: Yes. Wow. [37:14] Chad: Just to give everybody a thought of JD's skill setness, we played a game back in the day where you could look at any surfer in a magazine and not show him the name. And he would know by the sponsors and the colors exactly what surfer it was on every single picture. [37:28] JD: Yeah. It'd Be like, It'd be like you guys looking at a football player with the reef girls in an Eagles Jersey with number 10. And you'd be like, oh, that's so and so. It's kind of like that. I wouldn't know. [37:39] Justin: Okay, we're still doing this. Are we still going? [37:41] JD: Yeah, let's try the person in the office. Did he show us one already or is this the first? [37:44] Mark: No, it looks like. Yeah, that's. That's fake. That's fake. That's fake. [37:49] JD: That looks fake. [37:51] Chad: Where's the other one? [37:52] JD: Oh, yeah, I'm gonna go. [37:54] Mark: Yeah, first one. The first. No, first one's fake. [37:58] Chad: I'm going. First one's. First one's fake. [38:02] JD: Do you say this one's fake? [38:03] Justin: What is this? [38:03] Mark: Oh, sorry. This was, I, I. [38:06] Justin: Okay, this one is real, you're saying. [38:08] Mark: Yeah, this is the second one in my mind. But if this was the first one he showed us, this one's real. [38:14] JD: Yes, I agree with you. Okay. Yeah. [38:17] Justin: Yeah. [38:17] JD: Okay. Yeah, we're pretty much. [38:19] Justin: What I've noticed is they all have dark like vignettes around the edges. All the. [38:22] Chad: Yeah, they're highlighting their. [38:24] Justin: Yeah, well, the artificial ones. [38:26] Mark: Next time I'll tell the GPT to take off the vignette. Or, or I guess it's mid. I used mid Journey next time. Hey, let's be honest. [38:35] Justin: Pretty amazing. [38:37] Mark: Next time do the same picture. Would that be harder, you think? You know, I use the set. I grabbed stock photography and then I took their description and I just fed [38:46] JD: it into the journey. Just ask them next time to make, ask the artificial intelligence to make their pictures look less artificial intelligence. That'd be a good prompt. Okay. Artificial intelligence. This, we've, we used to, we talked about this for. We're not playing the game anymore, Brian. We, we've talked. [39:12] Mark: I thought that there was just, just pictures of Justin and Chad from their weekend scheme. [39:17] JD: We talked about this in the past and like past years and we kind of joked about it. And after shows, Brandon would come on all drunk telling us that, like, I [39:28] Mark: missed those times, right? [39:29] JD: That art artificial intelligence is going to like answer the phone at a third party administrator in the future and answer questions for a client you wouldn't even know. And I'd be like, oh, he's so conspiracy theory. Oh, that's so funny. Like, that's not going to happen unless it's like 20 years from now. And the more and more I'm seeing this stuff, it's like, this is going to happen. [39:52] Chad: It is happening. [39:53] JD: And you don't even know it's happening. [39:56] Mark: That's the worst. [39:57] JD: People are. People are building out, I don't know the correct term for it, but you can pick a genre like retirement plan because obviously they're building it for doctor, for medical stuff or whatever. Right. But so you could, in theory, and I think this is already happening. I know Tony's playing around with it, different people, but you can create an artificial intelligence and then train it in a specific field like retirement plan. And the same way that these things are passing the bar, they could become an ERISA attorney. Like. Right, [40:36] Mark: that's two. Right. [40:37] JD: Right now I. Why is it two. Right now I pay for, I think two services where my team can double check their answers in terms of like complicated compliance things. Yes. What's up, Chad? [40:54] Chad: I didn't, I didn't know we have those resources. [40:57] JD: Yeah, we pay for Aristopedia and we pay for. Oh, and we pay for the book you love, you know, and that come. That comes with some. And even at our, our compliance software allows us a certain amount of technical questions per month or whatever. Anyways, my point is, in the future or very soon, you could just hop right onto a little chat GPT thing and ask it questions that you had asked Fred Reese or Tom Clark or whomever. And it's gonna. Isn't that the death of that business model in general? [41:37] Chad: I don't think so. I think that there's an advantage to interpretation and communication and, and being able to hold people liable. You know, we need, we need attorney opinions. [41:49] JD: Okay. [41:50] Chad: We need attorney opinions all the time. Where I, where I do think the potential risk is in our space is not so much the niche business. Like the compliance side will be general education, like the advisor or perhaps record keeper side and general questions being answered maybe not the, the deep questions. [42:15] JD: Oh, I don't. I disagree with you. I think what makes it more powerful is that it would be in a better attorney than Fred Reich, it would be a better attorney than Thomas Clark. Because they're human. They can only pull on so many things. And, and this, this computer, this artificial intelligence would have the absolute knowledge of everything. And my point is, is that you could now you can pass up all these humans and go get the answers [42:45] Chad: that you know, the getting the answer is only as good as the cue you give it. Right. Like what you're putting in there to answer the question or to ask the question. And I think we all know it is not a singular level question. Most of what, what we ask is about interpreting this. Then Figuring out this, then that leads to this. And then here's the answer we're trying to get to. And I haven't figured out how to prompt that for artificial intelligence, but the [43:12] Justin: tech is so new, I think that will become a thing. [43:15] JD: Thank you, Justin. And, and also I think what you. [43:18] Mark: I don't know how this is any different from Google. [43:21] Chad: I think, what's your night and day difference, Chad? [43:25] Mark: Sarcasm. [43:26] JD: Have you heard of it? [43:26] Chad: Oh, okay. [43:27] JD: I think, I think what you're missing is the next step where you're, you're going to God. All these are acronyms, but you're going to the system we go to today that's so popular. Listen on the news and you're typing it in. That's how you see it right now. And it's very impressive. But what's going to happen is it's going to be built into a more niched ecosystem. That's retirement plan. And so when you talk about trying to put in the right prompt, that won't be as true at all. Someone will build a product around it. Mind you, when I say that the attorneys are in jeopardy. Let me, let me, let me put, Let me look in the mirror. In theory. I went today and I asked it to run. I sent it to you guys. I asked it to run an adp. God damn it. [44:13] Chad: Did he send it to you guys? [44:15] JD: It was an email. [44:16] Justin: Yeah, you got it too, dude. [44:18] JD: Yeah, so I, so I, I asked it really simple. I said, hey, you got this highly compensated employee they're making. This is her salary, this is how much they defer. It was really easy. I go, you got these three other employees, they're non highly comp. They make this much, they defer this much. Do they, do they pass their actual deferral percentage test, chat, whatever, alpha, alpha, alpha. And it answered totally accurately. Okay, what was going on? And then I prompted it again with, okay, how do I solve this? Like, what are the corrective distributions that we would make to the highly. Compton. And it went through the whole thing and to a T. Described for me the process and of how much money the, the, the highly competent have to take back. [45:05] Mark: And hey, jd, you really shouldn't be telling everybody how we serve his clients right now. [45:09] JD: Taxable income. And then. Only thing is I, Justin made a comment about. In the email, but. And then it up the math. It literally got the math wrong. [45:19] Justin: Well, I mean, it just did the formula wrong, but it had everything else right. The whole process. The process was wrong. Everything else was right. Right. [45:26] JD: So it did go wrong. But my point is, like Justin said, it's still early days. It's going to fix itself. You could literally like not need a third party administrator anymore. You could just go to the some stupid robot and say, run me compliance test for these thousand census data I'm about to dump into your system and tell me and someone builds it. Get your mind outside of the prompt and then the response. Someone's going to package it in a much deeper technology and software [46:01] Chad: to put the tinfoil hat on and ask the question I don't know the answer to. Would you see a hacker perhaps creating a bunch of fake prompts to screw up the artificial intelligence? Because we're teaching it the Employee Retirement Income Security act, right? We're essentially giving it what it needs to figure out these answers. That means we need to depend on what's in the Internet and what people are feeding it to learn from. [46:28] JD: Okay, you continue. [46:29] Justin: There's so much more on the Internet that will overpower. [46:35] Chad: That's what people say about Wikipedia. [46:36] JD: Yeah, but Chad, you continue to analyze it. I'm just going to say the word based on how you see chat GPT right now try to look at it more like, I'm going to start a business and I'm gonna have my own [46:50] Justin: 401k show or an artificial intelligence show. [46:53] JD: No, this is about 401k. [46:55] Justin: I'm gonna start my own talking about artificial intelligence. [46:58] JD: I'm gonna start my own 401k business. Maybe I should be doing this. And I'm gonna find some dope ass artificial intelligence software and I'm gonna build my own product solution. So it's not about putting in a prompt or whatever. I'm gonna build it all out, make sure it has the right answers, the right questions. [47:15] Chad: Okay? [47:15] JD: And therefore, therefore you can't fuck with it, Chad. You can't, you can't teach it to make wrong answers or whatever. I'm just going to build it. And remember when we had the stacks, the stacks dot artificial intelligence guy on and he was doing, oh, we can scan the statements and we can do the vendor uploads. And I was like, okay, big deal. But then he said, realistically, in the future, anything that a human is doing on your software, moving a mouse, hitting a key, clicking on a thing, and I'm going to talk about in ours Actuarial Services Corporation or whatever, we use anything that a human's doing that that chief executive officer in the after show said we could, we could build that where, where artificial intelligence could do it. So bro, that's why, Justin, this is relevant to our industry in a big way. And, and then think about, are they going to pay you to do third party administrative work for $2,500 a year when, when a computer could do a thousand of them in a millisecond? [48:14] Mark: So should we be looking for new jobs? [48:18] JD: No, because I'm your leader. I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make an artificial intelligence program. I say with bourbon in my mouth, and I'm gonna put all the other tpas out of business. [48:31] Mark: So I just get to sit back [48:33] Chad: and I will say, I will say publicly, JD will follow you into the fire. Guys, let's start our own company. [48:40] Justin: That's artificial intelligence right there. [48:42] JD: Just joking. But, but it, it could. Realistically, I'm going to go the whole. The classic answer, which is you could [48:49] Justin: build into that, that program to, to screw every other artificial intelligence up. [48:56] Chad: No, can't access that. [49:00] Mark: All I can say is what you [49:02] JD: just said is one of the most [49:05] Mark: insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. That there are some very, very smart people who are wanting to slow this artificial intelligence stuff down. [49:18] JD: True. [49:20] Mark: I, I stand in front of her like, I'm just [49:25] JD: not getting anywhere. I mean, it's not going to happen. [49:27] Mark: Oh, yeah. Who, who, who can prevent this, right? It is, it is what it is. But, boy, does it, it really does suck to think of the future now. It does. Like, I think of, you know, my son and my daughter. You know, I'm, I'm gonna tell my son to be a plumber. [49:43] JD: Right? [49:43] Mark: You can't, you can't. Artificially intelligent plumbing, right? And I mean, it is what it is. So I, I get into trade schools. College is irrelevant because you can just write your papers through artificial intelligence. Now, I'm not going to believe anything I read online that anyone ever writes anything. So good luck to people who publish blogs and articles. Nevin, whatever you put up, dude, it's not you. You're probably just plugging a prompt in. So I've lost faith in humanity, and so I'm just gonna go about my business and live my life. [50:18] JD: I do think on the use it as a tool concept before the robots take over, there will be a period of time where entrepreneurs will leverage this and make phenomenal business models that, that could really. [50:34] Mark: There's a very different approach. You're a, you're an entrepreneur, you, business owner. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna do all this. I'm gonna make all kinds of money, and then I'm over here. Like I need a job. [50:45] JD: Right, Right. That's right. Because I don't. [50:48] Chad: Still gotta sell it, Mark. [50:50] JD: We'll move on. But I just think this is a fascinating topic and I think that it's moving at such a fast pace that it's not a joke really. Like there's. There's gonna be. I mean I know people already that are working on secure 2.0 ones. Chad. That where you can go in and ask it a question that's exactly what you would call an attorney for. So anyways, we'. Okay, thanks, Brandon. I was gonna do. I was gonna do one show without the wheel of ice, but. [51:18] Chad: No you weren't. Yes you were. You should do it without the Wheel of Ice, Diddy. [51:24] Justin: Three months strong, kids. [51:26] Chad: I'm going to get him alert [51:30] JD: less. Let's work on our investment game. Let's do some drunk stock tips, shall we? I'm not going to walk you through the. The history but I will tell you that if you look at all of Robey's advice, it's still looking solid in I would say since the time we started it. The market's kind of had its ups and downs and has been relatively flat since we started doing this segment. But your picks are still looking really, really solid across the board. But maybe next time I'll update. Last time I updated everyone and everything. Brandon told me it was too long winded. So I won't do that. [52:25] Justin: I think we just needed to have a rolling. Rolling little thing up in one of these corners. How much money you would make? [52:31] JD: Oh, that'd be really easy to do. Do you want to program that for me or can you get. [52:34] Mark: Yeah, artificial intelligence. [52:36] Chad: Do it. [52:39] JD: So let's get right to it. Looked around at some different companies. There's a name in the. In the news and I don't. It's a popular store. It's around lots of places. I got one right down the street from me. I feel like Robi shops there at times. It's bed bath. [53:01] Justin: This is an easy one. [53:02] Chad: What are you doing? [53:03] JD: Well, mind you, they don't exist anymore. They went bankrupt and they have not. They're. They're struggling to avoid bankrupt bankruptcy. So I'm thinking maybe this is an opportunity to catch them on the downside. [53:18] Justin: You know, you're going for a gamestop throw right here, aren't you? [53:22] Mark: Let me. Let me ask artificial intelligence real fast. [53:26] Chad: Do you have it? [53:27] JD: Do you have it? [53:29] Justin: All right. [53:30] Mark: It's actually funny you say this. [53:32] Justin: We were nice web. [53:34] Mark: My. My daughter and I Were playing catch, as we sometimes do in our living room, and she threw the ball too hard, and it hit, like this picture on the wall. And it didn't fall off, but I was like, whoa, careful. She's like, where'd you. Did you paint that, dad? Okay, good to know. And make a joke. [53:57] JD: It's at an all time low. [54:00] Mark: I said, no, I didn't paint that. She said, where did you get that? And I was like, I don't know. Could have been anywhere, really. Maybe. Maybe it was Bed, Bath and Beyond. I don't know. The words just kind of came out of my mouth. And she goes, what's that? And I'm like, yeah, you don't even know what that is because they're closing down. And it's like, what can you buy there? And I said, oh, just, like, towels and other kitchen stuff. And I. Like, you know what? I registered there when I was getting married. So I. I have heart strings attached to this store that I remember looking at dishes that we never use and cups that we never used and things we registered that we got, we probably just threw away. So, yeah, that's my story backstory to this company. And I know that they're closing. There's one right down the way here that I believe already closed. It's sad. You see these empty buildings everywhere. It's kind of like what Toys R Us did, you know? And it just sad. I'm sure a spirit Halloween will go into there in October. It's gonna be fantastic. [54:57] JD: But they're getting lean. They're getting. They're getting. [55:02] Mark: What's the current stock price today? [55:05] Chad: $0.30. [55:06] JD: Yeah. [55:06] Mark: $0.30. [55:08] JD: Yeah. From a. From a. Okay. In August of last year, it was that. [55:13] Mark: You know why they lost so much money is because they sent everybody those massive blue flyers every week saying, 25 off or whatever it was. They. They. They killed too many trees, and now they're paying the price. My answer for you, my recommendation for you all, is that stock will be zero. Soon. They are shutting them all down. They will not be in existence. They don't deserve to be in existence, because guess what? There was never a Beyond The Beyond. Is this your bankrupt employees? [55:50] JD: Bankrupt? [55:52] Chad: Yeah, it was $30 a share back in 2020. [55:58] JD: That's what I'm saying. It's got nowhere to go but up, bro. [56:01] Chad: No, that's what I said about when I said about Laird Hamilton's food company that went. That went wrong for me. [56:09] JD: Right? [56:09] Mark: So, no, I'm out entirely. [56:13] JD: All right, we'll see. [56:15] Mark: Infinity and Beyond. [56:17] Chad: Bankruptcy. [56:19] JD: We'll see where it sits on its 30 cents in a couple months. Okay, let's see. Let's do chat bar champion. Last week's champ was Tony Davis, and I sent him some stuff. What did I send him? I don't know. I gotta look it up. See, I sent him stuff for his cat. Or does he have more than one cat? I feel like he's got more than one cat. I feel like I close my eyes and pretend he has like 12 cats that live with him. But I'm sure it's just a few. I sent him the Pet Stages. Kitty cat play condo, Ice cream truck. Cat toy. [57:01] Chad: Yeah. [57:12] JD: Oh, [57:24] Chad: Okay. [57:25] JD: All right. Anyways, I like that little back. Look at this. He goes under the thing and it like scratches your back. [57:32] Mark: I want one. [57:33] JD: I want like a human one, right? That'd be dope. I also got him the Pet Stages Cheese Chase ball track Cat toy. It's this little toy you knock around. I got him one of those like 70 style carpet hangout things, you know, like it's a carpet on the outside. We can go in there. It's a little tunnel, and he can sit up on top of it. And then I got him some drugs. I got him some. No, no. Some hemp. Calm your cat down. You got. [58:06] Mark: You got cat edibles. [58:07] JD: Some kush. Some kush for the cat. Some cat kush. So, yeah, there you go, Tony. Whatever. Hopefully your cats have fun with that. Who's. What's. Who's your vote for chat bar champion? Silent J. Oh, I gotta flip coins [58:24] Justin: between Greg and Brad. [58:25] JD: They were great. [58:27] Justin: Greg. [58:28] JD: Greg. Greg Greenfield. [58:29] Justin: Yep. [58:30] JD: I actually talked to him on the phone the other day. He called me for some consultation on some empower thing he's dealing with. So it's good to talk to Greg in real life. Mark. Your vote for chat bar champion. [58:42] Mark: Yes. Is Greg. [58:44] JD: Greg Chadwick? [58:46] Chad: No doubt it was Greg. [58:47] JD: Oh, well, there you go. [58:48] Chad: Comment of automatic enrollment. Go to bed because you're drunk. Was enough to win me over right there. [58:55] Mark: I like a chat. Chat balance plan. [58:57] JD: I'll. I'll vote for Brian Graff, man. That's my [59:02] Chad: vote. Means nothing. [59:04] Justin: We should send him something. [59:05] JD: Congratulations. GG [59:10] Chad: you go. [59:12] JD: Let me ask the chat bar. Anyone in the chat bar that attended the national association of Plan Advisors Foreign K summit. Would any of you. Sampo says yes. Hackler says yes. Would any of you like to hop on a little square box and. And tell us a bit about your experience? [59:37] Justin: This one. I gotta roll. [59:38] JD: Yeah, you can bail. [59:41] Justin: Obviously happened to stop it right here. [59:43] JD: Anyways, what's the new. Brandon's Got a box. Oh, wait, go ahead. Brandon's got a box. Sure. His game. Aaron Hall's game. Okay, let's bring Aaron hall in. Brandon, if you can. Can you elevate? [59:56] Chad: She was a speaker. She's partial. She's gonna say nothing but good things. Okay, well, I. I've heard. I've heard one bad thing. All good things. So I want some dirt now. [1:00:07] JD: I've got a little bit of dirt. [1:00:09] Mark: If it wasn't Flow Rider who performed this year, it was the. [1:00:14] JD: It was. What's his name again? [1:00:16] Speaker F: What's up, guys? [1:00:18] Chad: What's up? Behalf. [1:00:20] JD: Okay, so you were in sunny San Diego. [1:00:24] Speaker F: Yeah. [1:00:24] JD: Ended the deal. You've been to it in the past. Past years? [1:00:27] Speaker F: Yes, absolutely. [1:00:29] JD: So tell us this year, how was it for you? [1:00:33] Speaker F: I thought this year was great. Sometimes the, you know, the content is more interesting than other times. I found this year there were competing sessions that I wish I could have gone to more. What's that? [1:00:49] JD: I said that. [1:00:50] Chad: I said that's a good. That's a good thing. That's what you want when you're putting on an event like that. [1:00:54] Speaker F: Yeah. And there were so many top advisors who were on panels. There was a really, really good one with Jeff Adgerson, Janice out, and Jeannie Sutton talking about sales strategies, which I went because they're all my friends. But I got some real great stuff from that session. And the one from the attorneys with. With Tom Clark and. And Jamie and them was [1:01:23] JD: really good. [1:01:24] Speaker F: Really good, but also, you know, also terrifying. I was taking notes about, you know, what can elevate your risk litigation profile. And I'm taking notes. And at one point I just wrote to myself, have a 401k plan. It was. [1:01:40] Chad: That's motivating. [1:01:41] Speaker F: Yeah, I know. And I. I wasn't even trying to be funny to myself, but I was just halfway through it, I just found myself writing that down. [1:01:48] JD: Well, I always feel like every time I see Tom Clark speak, he's got a real authenticity to him that I enjoy listening to as an Arista attorney. How about the experience all in of a conference of registering, signing in, getting your little lanyard then kind of look. I like the design look of it all. Chachki's favorite Chachki little carnival aspect. How are the sponsors boost? What was the experience like beyond the content? [1:02:17] Speaker F: Yeah, well, San Diego was great. You came in and it was sunny on. On Saturday, sunny San Diego or Sunday. Both days were gorgeous. The walking from the hotel so unlike Vegas, you know, it's not. I mean, it's still a long walk, but this was. I stayed at the Marriott, so my walk was longer than those that stayed at the Hyatt. But I was all pretty inclusive. The events that the sponsors put on before, after dark, what was it? Monday night, all of them were awesome. I was in some rooftop thing overlooking like Petco Park. [1:02:50] JD: And there's, there's, there's different ones, right. Because there's like, there's 2500 of you, so they can't put you all in one, like, little spot. [1:02:59] Speaker F: No. And the sponsors are critical to the success of the event. So they all, you know, you get invited as an advisor, you get invited to a bunch of different ones and try to. [1:03:08] JD: So it sounds like. It sounds like in the world of Aaron hall, this was a successful. We're in the after show now, sort of, kind of. I'm gonna. Can I say acronyms? [1:03:19] Chad: Yeah. [1:03:20] JD: Napa summit for you, Webby. [1:03:24] Mark: The. [1:03:24] Speaker F: The layout was fine. The layout, once you got there was exhibit hall downstairs and then ballroom and, you know, other breakouts upstairs. It was easy to get around, you know, once you get there. For the ladies, I don't know is a problem. [1:03:38] Chad: But I don't know who Brian's iPhone is. But they voiced the one complaint I've heard, which was. He said segment it like advanced beginner and then sales side and then compliance. I like segment it so that we know kind of what we're really focusing in on and we can attend the right sessions. The one complaint I heard is that it was to. We weren't there thousand foot level for surface level. The advanced people that were there, the advisors that are part of Napa, some of the sessions, not some of the other ones that they were excited about. And this is three people I've heard it from. So not a big audience. So that they wanted more. Like they wanted more. [1:04:19] Speaker F: I'll say. I think, I mean, it's a massive conference. I think that's a solid idea. I know in the non qualified plan advisor conference, of which I'm on the planning committee, we absolutely do that. And for any advisors looking to broaden their business, we'll plug in, go to the non qual conference. It's absolutely. I'm in like that. We actually have three tracks this year to that point. [1:04:40] JD: Isn't everybody a novice when it comes to non qual? [1:04:44] Chad: I am, and that's why I want to go to it. [1:04:46] JD: All right. [1:04:48] Speaker F: You know, I've. I'm on the planning committee. And there are some sessions just for beginners that I would go to. Again, it is. It is a deep knowledge. But at that conference, you get enough to be able to talk about it, and that's enough to start and then call Jeff Atchison or call someone else that you meet there to. To get some help. But I digress. I think the tracks are a good idea. [1:05:09] JD: Yeah, that is a great idea. I've never seen that at a conference. That'd be really smart, like label it as novice, intermediate, advanced or something. [1:05:16] Speaker F: Probably. Probably don't call it novice. [1:05:17] JD: Might not get a lot of emerging. [1:05:20] Chad: Well, the truth is, I think you kind of would. Advisors, I think the novice advisor right now, because they're in states where they're mandated to do work for their clients that they've never done before. I think maybe Napa is not a good event for that. But some of the other ones where you have some really green advisors. Novice sessions would be great. I have advisors that call me all the time that listen into our show and they'll. They'll comment like, hey, I got 30% of it. And it was a really good 30%. But the rest of it was like, over my head. I didn't get the content. And I said, yeah, that's not. We're. We're trying to pick topics that are relevant to everybody, but. But we also try to give the people like Aaron some actual insight of what we're seeing when we're out there. So it's hard to do. [1:06:08] Speaker F: It's hard to do at Napa because, yeah, Napa wants, you know, to cast a wide net, but also level everybody up in order to do that. [1:06:16] Chad: Yeah, it's hard when you have errands and Alex's and others, and Jania is attending. Like, these are people that are sitting on stage speaking. You can't give value, real deep value to everybody on every topic. [1:06:28] JD: I don't know. [1:06:29] Speaker F: By the way, I heard a lot of people, I wasn't able to attend her. A lot of people said hers was the best one. [1:06:35] JD: There's a shocker. Yeah, it's very difficult. I think that, Aaron, you hit on the nail. I've always felt like that with a lot of presentations, no matter the conference or the gig, like most presenters like to kind of skim along the surface and they don't dive deep into these things because that's more difficult to get into that stuff. And to Chad's point, it all doesn't always reach everyone. But I. I do think that that's so I. There's nothing worse than sitting through a presentation and being like, okay, I didn't learn anything new. [1:07:04] Chad: Like, get to it. Get to it. But my point back, J.D. and maybe I'm wrong, but Napa is kind of the elite of the elite. Like, most of the people are paying to be there. It's a really good conference. I would think that's the one where you go deeper. You don't need the beginner courses there. [1:07:24] JD: I don't want to put you. [1:07:24] Chad: And I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying of all conferences, I feel like that's the one you get deep in. [1:07:29] JD: I don't want to put you on the spot, Aaron. So you can. You can plead the Fifth or whatever if you want to, but did you see the Family Feud yes thing? And how did that go for you? [1:07:38] Speaker F: You think it was fun? Because, you know, I know a lot [1:07:42] JD: of the people that were aggregators versus wirehouse. [1:07:47] Speaker F: Okay, yeah, Pat Wentzel was hilarious. She's my girl. She was, like, befuddled that the answers that should have been there, which we all agreed should have been there, were not there. It was quite funny in some parts to see the answers that these, you know, 600 plan sponsors gave compared to what we as advisors think. [1:08:08] JD: Oh, that's what it was. It was the. Okay. It's what the plan sponsor said the answer is. [1:08:13] Speaker F: And I want to say that they. That they pulled the participants. Clients. They kept saying that, like, these are your clients. [1:08:20] JD: Oh. [1:08:21] Speaker F: So it made me feel like the actual 10 advisors maybe submitted their client names to be sponsored, to be surveyed. I don't know. [1:08:29] JD: I just thought they pulled it off because, like, to Chad's point, when I put the post out today that we'd talk about this tonight, I got some people private messaging me some negative stuff. People love to. Right? Oh, of course. And someone told me that the. The Family Feud style show struggled a bit and left something to be desired. And then someone else wrote me it was really negative and said that it felt like the heart or the spirit had waned from this conference. And I was like, whoa, everything looks [1:08:59] Chad: and sounds like shit to you. [1:09:01] JD: It's a condition called being a cynical asshole. Yeah. One other person used the word sterile, and I was like, oh, shit. But Erin says, no, it was good from her perspective. Remember? [1:09:15] Speaker F: I thought it was funny. I didn't think anyone was stiff. You know, I thought the participation was good there. In the beginning, we. They did like a 20 minute. Who are you? Tell me a fun fact. As if they were Steve Harvey that I could have done without. But I thought that. I thought the surveys and the content was good fun. It's supposed to be fun, you guys. [1:09:35] Chad: People like that gotta be a little intriguing. [1:09:38] JD: Especially when they're writing me later. Mark. All right, Aaron, we're going to get rid of you, and we're going to see if Bill Shores is more of an he's a New Yorker kind of guy. He might be pissed off. It's good to see you, Aaron. [1:09:50] Speaker F: You too. [1:09:51] JD: Happy 26 birthday. Good for you. Go Bills. [1:09:56] Chad: Go Bills. [1:09:57] JD: All right, Brad, let's get rid of Aaron. Let's see if you can bring shin in. Bill, turn on your camera for me. [1:10:13] Speaker E: There we go. [1:10:14] JD: There he is. Hey, guys, can you let Aaron get back to her life? [1:10:21] Chad: Bill, you're wearing the color, the weekly color, which is black. I'm not wearing it tonight because it's Easter week. [1:10:28] Speaker E: Montauk Downs golf shirt. [1:10:30] JD: Anyway, Bill, good to see you. You made it to. [1:10:32] Speaker E: You too. Gents. [1:10:33] JD: You made the trek to San Diego? [1:10:35] Speaker E: I did for the Napa conference. And my son is now stationed there at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot. [1:10:41] Chad: Ah, thank you. To your son. [1:10:43] Speaker E: Yeah, he's. The drill instructors report to him. He's getting promoted to captain in. In the summer, so he's doing good to see him. [1:10:50] JD: And you got to hang out with him. [1:10:53] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. He's living in Logan Heights, so. [1:10:56] JD: Okay. [1:10:56] Speaker E: A bit of an interesting neighborhood. [1:10:59] JD: How you doing? All right. Were you guys a sponsor there as well? [1:11:03] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. Diamond sponsor. So the big dog, mid to upper five figures. So [1:11:13] JD: I didn't have questions like that for you, but I love that. Let me write that down. [1:11:17] Chad: I. Well, I did I forget a specific amount. I forget who it was, but someone wrote in the chat bar and forgive me for whoever it was, but had said that it was like ten grand to sponsor a table. [1:11:30] Speaker E: Yeah. So if you look at the size of the booths, we had the normal size booth, not the small size. But then there's the monster booths. [1:11:38] JD: They let them drag in their. Their big, like light box kind of stuff if they want to. Right. In a big room. [1:11:44] Speaker E: Exactly. [1:11:44] JD: So that's. That's probably 175 grand or something or who knows? [1:11:51] Speaker E: We did that once at Oppenheimer Funds. We did that platinum or whatever the top level is. And now we're content and happy with diamond. [1:11:59] JD: Someone's got to pay for all that. Okay, so you've been to it before. I think when I. When I put this out there and people private message me, I think I tend to get the negative people. I think they feel like, oh, let JD wants dirt, let me give him some dirt. No, I want the honest truth. We didn't get to go. When you look at, from LinkedIn, I see all these like happy people and great pictures and I love their little carnival aesthetic. They had everything. It looked like they let a lot of. Put a lot of time and energy and all that. So how was your experience just in general as a conference compared to the [1:12:33] Speaker E: old ones in general? I've already recommended and suggested we sponsor again next year. Very happy with the results as a sponsor. If you're looking for negative stuff, I'll give you two. I wasn't there personally, but everybody that attended the country fair atmosphere thing said it was a bit of a disappointment in terms it was held indoors. So it was inside the convention center. A lot of people thought it would be outside. And the acoustics with the band were, were not good, being that it was in a concrete structure. And so that was. [1:13:15] JD: It's hard to think of all those little details like that. But I hear you. If you're gonna do a carnival style with dunk tanks and whatever, it would make more sense to have a blue sky over the top of you and being outdoors. [1:13:28] Speaker E: So I'm just going by what other people I told me I wasn't there myself. And then the sponsored sessions that at, you know, the. On the last day, we. Each of the sponsors gets to hold the session and they set them up in rooms for 50 people. We had 87 people that weren't Invesco people. So with the Invesco people, we had over 100 people in the room for a room set up for 50. So we have people sitting on the floor. [1:13:54] Chad: So you like. I heard that a number of times that it was standing room only in, in sessions. Like the attendance for sessions was great. People weren't running out to be somewhere else. They were in session. [1:14:05] Speaker E: So you know what, what I would hope they do is let people pre pick their sessions before the conference where [1:14:11] JD: you register and then scale. Scale the rooms. [1:14:13] Speaker E: Yeah, so they can adjust, open a wall, put more seats in. And because some sessions had 20 people, you know, and they weren't full, others I know Wilmington Trust had a very good crowd. We had a very good crowd. There was one other one that had. [1:14:26] JD: That's good advice. I wonder how realistic it is if you sit in their shoes, like, like to get everyone to actually fill out what they want to go see before they arrive. Like maybe like, yeah, right, Bill, we can't get everyone to do that. [1:14:39] Chad: Yeah. It's also insightful to see the rooms that are standing room only and then format your conference the next year with content that is similar because they know that's what people want to hear. [1:14:50] Speaker E: Yeah. Yeah. And as a sponsor, this is the only conference where I suggest to my entire team that they try to attend. It's not mandatory, but all nine of my field people were there. A couple of home office people were there. [1:15:03] JD: Because it's a national conference. [1:15:07] Speaker E: Yeah. All the top advisors, you know, come to this. You know, do you. [1:15:11] JD: Do you feel when you're. I always think of a sponsor standing at your booth that you paid all this money for, and you've got your little stress ball squeezers and your pens out in front of you and your pro V ones, and it's. It seems like a sad moment to me. You're waiting for people to come up and talk to you. But are you saying no, that you're getting a lot of action at the [1:15:34] Speaker E: table and a lot of booth time is depressing? It is because I equate it to adult Halloween because you have grown adults walking around with trick or treat bags engaging in very superficial, you know, blatantly, you know, disingenuous conversation just so they can grab an ice cream scooper and move on to the next table. [1:15:59] JD: Did someone have ice cream? That's smart. [1:16:01] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, we had ice cream. We had ice cream and we gave out ice cream scoops. So it was get the scoop from Invesco, you know, and such a bummer. [1:16:08] JD: I think of, like, Chad and I are both the nerd types. Like, if you gave me a room of sponsors, I'm not kidding here. I don't want your ice cream scoop and I don't want your fucking tchotchke. I think Chad and I would sit down and go, okay, who are the companies that we need to go talk to right now that we can learn something from that we want to know, like, what they're up to and what they're doing and. Because I've. I've literally done that at conferences, Chad. [1:16:33] Chad: I'm in such disagreement with that statement, though. J.D. from a marketing perspective, solely with my. My business development brain on, I just want people to step up and I want their email addresses and I want them to hear our brand name. And I don't care if I get superficial conversation or if we're talking about plan design consultants. Like, I want to interact. Even when we've done these with retireaholics, we never talk about what we actually do, it is always a superficial conversation, but it ends up leading to a relationship, some sort of follow up beyond there. That's what you're searching for at the booth. [1:17:11] Speaker E: Chad, you're 100% right. I mean, it's. When I was saying that about the super superficial conversation, there are a bunch of people that have no interest in what you have to say. Yeah, they're there for the shotgun, but, but they're, they tend to be the minority, you know, given the level of advisor, the quality of the advisor that attends Napa. They're paying good money to be there. So it tends not to be the guys or gals that are just there for the freebies. And you know, so I, I totally [1:17:38] JD: disagree with you, Chad. Like, I, which is not uncommon. But when I used to go to these things and I was a sponge in my brain, you know, and I wanted to, I wanted to go find the things I didn't know, you know, like I'd see. [1:17:51] Chad: But you're not doing that at a marketing booth. Like, if anything, I walked around and grabbed their flyers. But JD Everything is online now. So unless you're going to spend, unless, you know, you want to talk to Bill or his team about something that Invesco is doing. Yeah, you don't go to that booth. Like, you're going to Write them on LinkedIn. You're going to find a different way of getting actual time with him. Not while they're trying to hand out tchotchkes. [1:18:13] JD: You're not going to go up and talk to them about. [1:18:15] Speaker E: Yeah, what we did for the first time this year is we lightened up a lot on the literature and just had QR codes for people to scan. [1:18:24] Chad: And what's that look like? Because you can, you can follow that. How many people scanned it. [1:18:29] Speaker E: But yeah, my marketing group hasn't gotten that for me. [1:18:31] Chad: And that would be an interesting stat. [1:18:33] Speaker E: But at our sponsored session, we scanned everybody's badge that came into the room. That's why I know we had 87 advisors, because we scanned 87 badges that got the presentation, that got the content, and we will be following up with those. [1:18:47] JD: That's good, that's good tech. But you could run a webinar and get 87 people and reach out to them too, though you don't have to pay, you don't have to pay 80 grand for it. [1:18:57] Chad: But JD if you're not there, you're. You're nobody. Like, we, we weren't there, they weren't there. And it was sad. [1:19:04] JD: There you're very right, Chad. If you're not there, then you're thinking, whoa, where's. Where's Hoya? Where's Hancock? Where's. Whatever? So. I get that point, Chad. I was not talking about it from the sponsor's perspective. I was talking about it from me as a. As a participant. [1:19:22] Chad: Yeah. [1:19:23] JD: Waiting it. And I'd want to go learn things. [1:19:25] Chad: And you're coming from the biggest, in my opinion. Nerd. I do not walk up to those booths to learn anything. If I do, I walk up and I hand a card and say, let's connect after, afterwards. Like, they've got a bigger job there than to try to teach me something. [1:19:41] JD: I think in today's day and age, there's lots of, like, new evolving tech and apps and things and. And so things that you're not really aware of that. That a conference is a great place to go, like, find out, like, what is that thing? Like, I've never seen it. I don't know what it's about. I can go over and look at it. I mean, I think that that's exciting and fun, but whatever. Okay. So, Bill, you say you're coming back next year. Thumbs up from Bill Shore is so Napa looks like it's been a success, irrespective of the few haters that wrote me on LinkedIn private message. [1:20:16] Speaker E: It was the highest attendance. Best attendance ever. So both the sponsor and advisor point of view. [1:20:21] Chad: So, hey, good location to take that into consideration. Amanda and team, as you're planning next year, west coast is the good coast. [1:20:30] Speaker E: Nashville is next year. [1:20:33] Chad: Oh, boring. [1:20:33] JD: Just imagine. Incredible. They had 2500 people show up or. Or more. I mean, imagine if the retireholics were performing there. I mean, they probably would have had four to five. [1:20:44] Chad: Imagine if the retireaholics were opening that the hole, that it didn't pull on the heartstrings and it wasn't fun. That one. That comment won't exist if we open. [1:20:52] JD: All right. All right, Bill. Thank you. [1:20:54] Speaker E: Thank you, guys. [1:20:55] JD: See you later. [1:20:56] Chad: Bill, great to see you. [1:20:57] Speaker E: Yep, same here. Chad, good seeing you. [1:20:59] JD: Thanks for sticking around. Oh, geez. I didn't even put out the news. My bad. [1:21:04] Chad: What news? [1:21:05] JD: I blew it. Brandon, I'll do. I guess I'll just do it on LinkedIn. And for those people who stuck around, we're gonna go every other month, every other week for the show now. We're gonna take a week off just like we did last week. I'll have to. I'll put out a big post about it. [1:21:22] Chad: I was gonna tell you, my son's baseball team, which I'm now coaching, is Thursday nights. It's only like seven weeks long, but still, it's going to create some complication for me. [1:21:32] JD: I brought it up to Brandon. I said, hey, that week off feels pretty good. I'm like, what do you think? Like, should we consider, like, just going every other week? And before I could finish my sentence, Brandon was like, yes, done. Let's do it. [1:21:45] Mark: So your. Your son's performance, [1:21:50] Chad: it's solid. He was hilarious. So the first. Last year, the first time he got in a big stage in an auditorium like that, he wouldn't wave at us, he wouldn't look us, he wouldn't do anything. Tonight, he was like. We told him when he got up on stage that he should grab the mic and go, new Bloomfield, how you doing? He didn't do that, but the rest of it was great. [1:22:12] JD: The. [1:22:13] Mark: The meat was that Mark sending the. The songbird meme. [1:22:18] Chad: It was. It was also Mark that focused in on the banner up there that showed that it was a fourth place, but it's fourth place in state. Like, yeah, you won your conference, you won your district. You're in state. [1:22:30] Mark: Of course. [1:22:30] Chad: You put that up. [1:22:31] Mark: Bird of my generation. [1:22:32] Chad: Yeah. [1:22:33] Speaker E: People who've heard me. That good? [1:22:37] Chad: That good. [1:22:37] JD: All right. Good for him. [1:22:39] Chad: It was great. [1:22:40] Justin: Yeah. [1:22:40] Chad: Thanks, B. For asking. [1:22:41] JD: All right, everyone, thanks for tuning in. It's been another sort of retire hugs. We are the retirex. We are changing the retirement plan in the train one bear at a time, and we'll see you in two weeks. Same bad channel, same bad time. Well, not really. Every other week we're gonna go like, what is it? First and third? [1:22:58] Chad: I'm gone the next two weeks, by the way. [1:23:00] JD: I don't give a you, Chad. [1:23:04] Chad: Good night, folks. [1:23:05] JD: See you later, everybody. [1:23:07] Chad: Bye. [1:23:08] JD: Happy sweet Friday.