Plan Design Strategy & Fiduciary Compliance with Keith Gredys

[0:02] JD: Welcome to the Nevin and Fred podcast. Fresh perspectives. My name is Nevin. And that guy in the robe, well, that's Fred Reich. Let's get this kicked off and started right. It's full of integrity. It's unimproved. [0:23] Chad: Oh, my God. [0:26] JD: The tragically old Wheel of Ice. Let's spin that biat. [0:33] Chad: Yeah, that's a record time. [0:36] Justin: Love the new logo, baby. [0:40] Chad: Holy cow. I didn't even go get it yet. [0:48] Justin: Dad, you should have stuck around. [0:50] JD: Dad, you might want to grab the makers. Chad, if you can hear us, you [0:56] Justin: need to grab the makers, too. [0:59] Chad: What a. [0:59] Mark: What a way to. [1:00] Chad: Oh, yeah, buddy. [1:01] JD: Frozen. [1:03] Keith Gredys: This is not even fair anymore. [1:04] JD: Excuse me. Is that not the best show intro ever? [1:08] Chad: Ever, ever. [1:10] Keith Gredys: I was planning on doing a peloton ride tonight, too. [1:15] JD: Phenomenal. Let's keep. Keep it moving along. I'm loving the vibe. This is the time where Justin intros the guests. And you out there in the audience, you people, you're going to rate him 0 to 10. Justin, take it away, buddy. [1:29] Justin: Today's guest, or as featured chat bar hall of Famer Greg Greenfield, likes to refer to him as Keith Barr, has been doing fiduciary work for almost 40 years. Keith, I wasn't even alive when you started. Neither were Chad and Mark. 13 years running Crescent Investment Organizations and 26 years running Kidder TPA Actuarial Consulting and advisory firms. Yes, he's been around the block a time or two. We have old Keith Barr on record stating that he has many similar thoughts as JD regarding plan design, administration, compliance, et cetera. And by et cetera, we're all but certain he was referring to Peps as well. At the end of the 2018, and after months of constant harassing by fellow friend of the show and dire enemy of pepsuck.org, mike Decenco convinced Keith to sell Kidder Benefits and Kidder Lane Actuarial Services to Newport Group. It was his intention to sell, but he just couldn't resist all that EBITDA Newport was thrown at him. And Mark, JD did not say anything about Acro Sin, so I'm good. [2:27] Keith Gredys: I know. [2:28] Chad: Trust me, I know. [2:29] Justin: He resides with his wife Charlotte, his two sons, Pete and Tom, and their dog Goose, in Clive, Iowa. It's a population of 17,000 people, which has 31 times as many people as the new area Chad lives in, which are probably cows. He's the chairman and CEO of the Kidder Company. [2:43] JD: Keith. [2:44] Justin: The Keith Bar Grace. [2:48] Mark: Golf clap. Golf clap. [2:51] JD: Did we get. I had a bet going with Hacker did you get the last name correct? How do you say his last name? [2:56] Justin: Yeah, how do you sell. Is it Grady? What is it Keith [3:00] JD: Gretus Gretis. [3:02] Mark: Think of lettuce. [3:03] Justin: I don't know if I said it. [3:04] JD: Think of lettuce. [3:05] Justin: I blacked out. [3:06] JD: Think of lettuce. I like that. Lettuce. Let's see. Let's talk about the games. Let's make sure that. [3:12] Chad: Speaking of lettuce. Come on, dude. Shredded lettuce is the only form of lettuce you should ever have on a sandwich. I just need to let everybody know. [3:19] Justin: Are you. Are you saying that because it's your peloton name? [3:23] Keith Gredys: Yeah, [3:25] JD: it's. [3:26] Justin: It really is. Everybody. [3:30] Chad: I can't believe shredded lettuce was already taken. [3:32] JD: Okay, just because we got off to a great start doesn't mean we can just start bantering amongst each other for this whole show. Shut up and let's stay on schedule. [3:41] Mark: Wow. [3:43] JD: We're playing chat bar champion, Keith. So watch that chat bar. You will vote someone into the semifinals. And then you all out there, you know you're going to vote for the winner. Hello to LinkedIn Live. We're streaming on LinkedIn Live, so maybe you want to call hang out in zoom. I don't know. Yes, yes. Let's see. Acrosin. Acrosin starts now. If you say an initialism or an acronym, you must drink from your penalty drink. And as usual, I'm sipping straight off the goose. I thought I wrote the definition of an acronym here, but I seem to have misplaced that. Oh, no. Acronym. Let's define it. An acronym is defined as an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word. And next week, I'll define initialism. One more thing. [4:41] Chad: Wait, hold on. [4:41] JD: No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, go. [4:46] Chad: The way that definition is written, you said and pronounced as a word. [4:52] JD: Yeah. [4:52] Chad: So that tells me that we have to just make sure we're very specific to say. That doesn't mean you can just say the letters. [4:59] JD: Well, no, because we also said you cannot say initialisms. [5:02] Keith Gredys: Yeah. [5:03] Justin: We've been doing this for how many shows and we're still arguing over what the definition. [5:06] JD: I know, but that's the fun. Okay, everybody, listen up. Get out your favorite dip. I don't know if it's barbecue or ranch that you like, but we're bringing back Chad's nuggets. There's a little Chad nugget right there. There's a little valuable, tasty Chad nugget. Make sure you got Some nuggets prepared for us as we go through. Let's dive right into headlines. Headlines these, Brandon headlines. We got some dicey one. God, I'm loving this show. I don't know. The vibes are good. It's a vibe, Mark. It's a vibe. [5:53] Chad: You know what? I'm down with the vibes. [5:56] JD: Participant. Sue. Wait, wait a second. You know what I love more than anything? [6:01] Chad: No. [6:01] JD: I love when I post on LinkedIn that we're going to talk about a lawsuit at Transamerica and the Transamerica people start blowing up Chad in the middle of the day trying to ask them what the hell we're going to talk about. Hey, Trans, none of your fucking business. It's our show and we'll talk about it if we want to. [6:19] Chad: I mean, what are they really? What are they questioning? We're going to talk about what the article is about. [6:24] JD: Yes. [6:25] Chad: Pretty simple. [6:25] Keith Gredys: I think they just wanted their side heard, Mark, that's all. [6:29] Chad: They act like we're the media and we have some uncovered some information that they don't have. [6:34] Mark: No, we're not going to have an HR department. So I can do a feelings report. [6:42] JD: Resources Keith, Drink. Participant Sues Record Keeper for Data Breach. You can find the article at the National association of Plan Advisors.com org whatever. You know where it is, you can find it. Here's what happened. You know what the deal is, Honestly. I'm honestly not dragging Transamerica under the bus here. Like, I don't think this is that big of a deal. A participant has sued because their personal information was hacked. We're talking first name, last name, mailing address, Social Security number, etc. We've, we've talked about this on the show before a little bit and maybe my opinion is a little counter to the general public. I just don't think that information is all that sketchy and weird to have out there. I've come to find that it's already out there, people. And you could literally throw a dart at any large Fortune 500 company that has lost this type of information. I think Brandon even told me the fricking government themselves have been hacked and lost this information. So Trans, don't worry. I don't think you really did that bad of a thing at all. This happens to everybody. Anyone disagree with me? Do you guys think that this is scary shit, people in the chat bar? Mark, Keith. [8:03] Justin: Not really. [8:04] JD: Okay. [8:05] Keith Gredys: Hit the nail on the head that [8:06] Justin: it's, it's, it's going to happen. It's expected, it's all over us. But so with that said though, it [8:12] Keith Gredys: doesn't make it okay. [8:13] Justin: It doesn't make it okay. [8:14] Keith Gredys: Don't be naive. [8:15] Justin: No, I'm not being naive at all. But do you, with what you just said though, jd, do you think that participant has a chance to actually win this lawsuit or is it a settlement? What do you think? [8:24] JD: I'm not so certain. Because trans did what they were supposed to do. They didn't hide it. They notified everyone. That's how this participant found out. [8:32] Keith Gredys: It does say they took four months to notify him in the write up though. [8:36] JD: And then they, they offered them what, like free Experian accounts where they could kind of check their credit and stuff. And I think that's part of what you're supposed to do as well. So I don't know this for fact, but I'm sure who also I think [8:48] Keith Gredys: got hacked and lost a bunch of. Experian did. Yeah. Which is what I was laughing because in the lawsuit it quotes back that he doesn't want to use their services to protect for. For credit protection because it's not safe with them. Nobody can guarantee the protection of my data is what they said. Fuck no. Nobody can guarantee the protection of your data. It doesn't matter where it is. [9:10] JD: Right. I just. [9:11] Keith Gredys: There is no guarantee of this anymore. [9:13] Mark: I own data. Only if you don't give it away. [9:16] Keith Gredys: Even you have to give it away though, Keith. There's. There's no other way not to nowadays. But this was a money play in my mind when I read it. It just someone chasing a few dollars. [9:26] JD: Yeah. And I also think we now the lesson learned too is we live in a world with technological advantages where you need to monitor your own credit. You know, you need to just keep track of what's going on with your stuff and watch out for it. But so yes, trans, you're okay in my book. But check out that article if you want to learn more about it. Next headline and this one's a little dicier. And this one actually came out today, so I threw it last minute. Voya sued for using their own investments in a 401k plan. And I don't know if you guys have had a chance to read this. Mark, Chad, Justin, I didn't but the [10:03] Justin: moment Mark sent that response emails like, oh. Because my first response was like, oh God, he gives a shit. Like another one of these. And then Mark sent that email, I was like, oh, I got to dive in. [10:10] Chad: This, this is good. [10:12] JD: Do you know why it caught my attention? [10:14] Keith Gredys: Yeah. Yes. [10:17] JD: A Wholesaler that we have known for decades is named in the lawsuit. [10:21] Chad: Like he's part of plaintiff. [10:24] Keith Gredys: He's the lead plaintiff. [10:25] JD: So. David Ravarino, I used to call him Ravi, is a great dude who I love. Used to work for Voya's, I guess. What do they call them these days? Regional vice president, a wholesaler. And he's a great one, a successful one. And he's part of this lawsuit. Well, if you read the lawsuit, it's basically talking about proprietary funds. So I want to ask you guys. And I know this isn't prudent, and I know Keith, you're a big fiduciary fan. I know that you should not have conflicts of interest, but it's kind of like working at Domino's. That's a bad analogy. Working at a local pizza joint and ordering pizza from down the street at one of your competitors. Doesn't it seem logical that Voya would have Voya funds in their own 401 plan? I mean, they're fucking Voya, for Christ's sakes. Anybody? [11:13] Mark: Well, from the standpoint, other than they're getting paid on there, if they figure out a way to rebate it back. [11:18] Chad: Right, Right. [11:19] JD: There you go. I think that's the crux of it. Yeah. [11:22] Keith Gredys: The whole that I shouldn't have my own funds. To your point, JD in my company's retirement plan would be like me coaching my kids baseball team and saying, I don't want my kid on the team. My kid is not the best baseball player. There's nine others that are a lot better. I could pull, but my kid's going to be on my team every time because I'm the coach. [11:41] JD: If I worked at Voya and we use the American Century Target date funds, I'd kind of be asking like, hey, what's wrong with our funds? Do our funds suck in some way? [11:52] Keith Gredys: Like, you gotta believe in what you're doing. [11:55] Chad: Drink the Kool Aid. Right. [11:57] Mark: Well, I mean, Carbon labor and all that stuff has all that stuff. If there's conflicts, how you deal with it, again, you make a revenue neutral. You try to take that out. So they've already addressed some of that. [12:08] Chad: Well, here's the deal with that. I feel like. And again, this is no shot at someone that we know who's named in this. But, like, I feel like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. [12:17] Keith Gredys: Right? [12:18] Chad: Okay. We use Voya funds. Oh, shame, shame. Oh, we didn't use Voya funds. Well, why wouldn't we do that right? Like where the fuck do you draw the line? Like, which one do you choose? And that's, I mean, what it was. [12:28] JD: How about this? [12:29] Chad: How about you just don't offer a fucking 401k plan? How about that? Everybody's happy. [12:35] JD: I think Keith nailed it. If you read the lawsuit a little more, they talk about the, I don't know if it's the fix or whatever, the stable value, but they talk about this 2% gap of revenue and I think they quote like $65 million in profit that was generated from that. And obviously they make profit from their own funds. So I think Keith spoke most intelligently about this. Why wouldn't Voya work some self thing where they're like, look, you work at Voya, we're Voya, you're getting this basically zero expense fund or something. Create some very low cost, special home cooking type of deal and then you'd be safe. But instead they're making money off of it. And I think that' where they can end up getting in trouble with this one. [13:19] Mark: The only thing that sometimes comes up in those types of deals is it's not so much Voya, what $2 billion plan, I think it's hitting that, but is some of the funds have utilized that say, hey, we got our own plan in there, we got $2 billion in there. So they inflate their fund complex that were XYZ so large. Now again, 2 billion and a fund complex is not, maybe not that big of a deal, but if somebody did it in a smaller fund, yeah, that's, that's even more of a conflict because they're just inflating their numbers even though they're not making any money on it. That's, that's just a different side note. But yeah, yeah, I wouldn't see that as an issue with the Voya. [14:00] Chad: Hey, where do you think the bonus money comes from? Right? [14:03] Keith Gredys: You know, two things I read in that, JD1 was that the Voya Target Date suite underperformed their peers 20 to 40% of the time. That seems like pretty decent, pretty decent rate of return to me. If you're beating 60% of the market 100% of the time and 80%. [14:24] Chad: Let's just ask the question, Chad. Did they make any money? Did people invested in those funds, were they positive? Were they net positive? [14:32] Keith Gredys: Yes, we've been in a massive stretch. [14:34] Chad: Right? [14:35] Keith Gredys: That's, that's, that has nothing to do [14:37] JD: with it, I don't think. I don't want to get lawyer speak on you, Chad, but I Don't think we live in a world where you can sue for lack of performance. Like, that's not. [14:46] Keith Gredys: But that's in there. They're saying that they selected those funds without properly reviewing them because they were underperforming, performing their peers. [14:55] JD: You sue because funds have fallen below predetermined levels in your investment policy statement or your process and you don't have your hands on the steering wheel as a fiduciary the way you should. I don't like when I see these lawsuits where they go, oh, this fund performed badly over this period. Like, I don't give a fuck about that. Tell me that you're not replacing it when you should is the more correct way to explain. [15:18] Keith Gredys: We should just all go the Voya pooled employer plan route and funds are zero expense, guys. Nobody. There's no expense behind any investment. [15:29] JD: Last. [15:30] Chad: Was that supposed to be a Chad joke? [15:32] Keith Gredys: Yeah, Mark, Last headline. Got it. You get it? [15:35] JD: Last headline. Chad is. Has begun watching the show Yellowstone. Kevin Costner's Yellowstone on tv. I'm very excited for him to. [15:44] Chad: Good show. Is dope stick. Dope sick. Jesus Christ. Dope sick. Gotta watch it, Mark. [15:51] JD: Have you watched Yellowstone? [15:53] Mark: No. [15:54] Chad: That looks awful. [15:55] JD: Justin. [15:56] Justin: Horse well caught up, Keith. [15:58] JD: Yellowstone. [16:00] Mark: I bite you. I haven't done it. [16:01] JD: Oh, well, in Yellowstone, when you're a ranch hand on Costner's ranch, they brand you like they brand a cow on your. On your chest. So Chad knows this now. He's seen enough of the episodes. Chad, I want you to consider. I'm thinking maybe we do a PDC brand for all of our employees, something similar to that. Okay. All right, bring him up. [16:24] Keith Gredys: You can't brand my chest, though, J.D. i'm already branded. [16:28] Mark: And they can do it for all your clients too. [16:30] JD: Oh, that's nice. I like that. They could never leave you. [16:35] Keith Gredys: Well, people left Kevin Costner in that show so like his own son can happen. That does spoil any. [16:43] JD: Okay, sorry. Let's go to topic number one. I've titled this. I shouldn't say I've titled this. Keith has titled this Better plan designs. And we ain't talking about auto enroll or auto escalate people, because I feel like that's what all the big record keepers in the industry as a whole always talks about when they talk about design is autos. That's not. We're talking about today. We're talking about tax savings. Each of you. I'm going to start with you, Keith. Name a cool design. I'll start with me and then you go. I'm going to claim my cool design as a cross tested profit sharing design. You name a cool design layer on [17:21] Mark: a cash balance on top of that [17:22] JD: layer on a cash balance. Mark, your fun favorite, cool, intense design. [17:28] Chad: I'm just going to go with the basic and just say safe harbor non elective with profit sharing. [17:36] JD: Okay, Chadwick. [17:38] Keith Gredys: I'll say a supplemental match on top of a safe harbor match. [17:43] JD: Are we running out of them, Justin? And anyone left? [17:45] Justin: I'm going with a triple stack match. [17:47] JD: Nice. [17:48] Chad: You can't triple stack a double stack. [17:51] Keith Gredys: You can triple stack. [17:54] JD: Keith, share with us your headspace on this. On your. Your headspace, your excitement. When you look at a census and you're strategizing on different design options for a client. Like, is this something that get. Floats your boat? [18:08] Mark: Oh, yeah, I love that because then you can sit there and want to see how much we can take away from the government and give it to everybody else. Tax savings get people to. From point A to point B faster. That's free. You get what you take it away from Uncle Sam. The way I always sort of look at it is you go and you're sitting around a table and you got a chair. You always ask, hey, where's your partner at? What partner? Well, government. They're taking half your money. I go our job. We're going to make that the smallest chair possible. What I do. [18:45] JD: No, you're good. He made a joke. [18:46] Mark: I'll still drink. [18:49] JD: I like this guy. [18:50] Chad: What is that cup full of? [18:53] Mark: That's Jack and Coke. [18:54] JD: Nice. [18:55] Chad: Okay, it's mixed. I thought that was just pure Boo. Wait, but jacking. [19:03] Keith Gredys: I'm ready to go. [19:04] Chad: Jack and Coke Sands. The ice. [19:06] JD: Is that what you're going with? [19:08] Mark: The ice is melting. [19:10] Justin: Okay. [19:11] Mark: Because there's plenty of Jack in there. [19:12] JD: Jack and Coker. That's the devil's juice right there. Chad. [19:19] Mark: People wanted to know if I needed a ride home already. [19:21] JD: Do you still live in a world where do you categorize your prospects as ones that want design to benefit the owners and kind of screw over the rank and file? Mark hates it when I use that word. And. Or look at them as, oh, no, this is an owner that wants to do good for their employees and do a lot like, do you still look at things in those two kind of silos? [19:44] Keith Gredys: I've yet. I've yet to come across a business owner that says, I want to set up a plan and reward my employees, but not myself. [19:51] Mark: That. [19:52] Keith Gredys: That, that was the B option you just gave me there. Every time that there's a company contribution. It is about creating tax efficiency and the byproduct is rewarding the employees. It's just the way that the small market 401k design works. Do I classify plans and opportunities as those that are trying to create massive sheltering? Absolutely. [20:11] JD: 100% for certain key individuals. You kind of just took a chapter from Keith's book. I think Keith, when you and I had talked, you had mentioned like a lot of times this is a win win, right? Like, even though you design something for say the owners, many times the employees are going to be benefactors of some greater benefit as well, right? [20:31] Mark: Oh, yeah. I mean, you take them from the typical match and all of a sudden you do a non elective and then you say, okay, I want to do a cash balance plan. What's it take? Usually your gateway is going to be 5 to 7 and a half, 8% or whatever the case might be. So now you're getting the employees 8%. If you can get them to do 8, 9%, 10%, whatever, they're on their way. So. And then of course you're getting the owner probably 25, 30, 40, 50%, whatever. So it's a win win. [21:01] Keith Gredys: You're gonna give it to somebody. You're gonna give it to somebody. You're either giving it to the IRS or you're giving it to your employees. [21:07] JD: Chad, this is your. This is your. [21:10] Chad: Give it to who, Chad? Give it to who? [21:12] Keith Gredys: Your employees. [21:14] JD: Mark, what did he say? [21:17] Keith Gredys: Give it to your employees. [21:18] Chad: Internal Revenue Service. Oh, you looked so like you wanted to scold me for that, dude. [21:28] JD: Mark, do you, do you share Chad's nerdy passion? [21:32] Chad: No. With not at all. [21:37] JD: Uploading your prospect census into your little design software and starting to move things around and try to figure out the best way to benefit the owner. Does that get you excited? [21:51] Chad: It does not get me excited, but I don't mind doing it. It's part of my job. No, I thoroughly enjoy. In some ways, it becomes a challenge when you get a census. That's not ideal, right? You get those ones that come in and you're just, you've got an owner who's close to retirement. They've got, you know, small amount of employees, but you can really give a bunch to them. And the cost of the employees, the contribution of the employees is fairly low. And it looks really good and it makes you though you feel good it all worked out. But it's those ones where you run it and you're like, oh man, this owner's, you know, 33 years old. Their employee average age is 48. You know, and then you got to start getting creative. And again, it, it's. It's a challenge. [22:40] Keith Gredys: When it gets fun though, that's when [22:42] Mark: you're like, match comes in. [22:43] Chad: There you go. [22:44] Keith Gredys: That's when you find a stretch safe harbor with supplemental match on the top or you move it to integrated and all sudden you realize, well, if I bump their comp up buff this threshold, I can lower the participant cost down by 20 grand and get them an extra 20 in sheltering for the that following. Yeah, but I'm good at my job. [23:04] Chad: But a lot of that too go. That, that's. [23:06] JD: That's the thing, people. [23:08] Chad: Oh, that, that's gonna cost you there, Keith. [23:13] Justin: Could that be counted as Chad's nuggets right there? [23:16] JD: That's what. [23:17] Justin: Could that be considered Chad's nuggets right there? [23:19] Chad: I don't know. Is that something you would dip. Dip the sauce? All right, I. [23:26] JD: Okay, let's think about advisors that are out there. Do they understand all these favorite designs you talked about? Are they leveraging them and you all shaking your head no. Should they everyone shake your head? [23:41] Mark: Yes to a degree. [23:42] Justin: Yes for sure. No to a slight degree. From a 30,000, 40,000 foot level? I think they should. [23:49] Keith Gredys: Should they understand the staircase of funding? Yes. There's 401k, there's safe harbor, there's profit [23:56] Justin: sharing, one in the same. [23:57] Keith Gredys: They don't need to understand the differences between pro rata integrated age, weighted cross test. There's no benefit in them knowing things to that level. They need to understand the steps and how tax efficiency is seen and recognized. [24:10] Mark: You say that still too complex. [24:12] Chad: Yeah. [24:13] JD: You say that because you want to partner with them. I guess my bigger point is, and I love get Keith's thought after 40 years in the business is they need to have their spidey sense up on that stuff. They need to be sniffing that out. And if they got to have a partner to do it then, then fine. But I got to let me ask you, Keith. I mean, all your years in business, design's got to be up there for you. You tell me yes or no in terms of importance when you're looking at a prospect. [24:41] Mark: Oh, that to me, yeah, absolutely. Because that's sort of how we grew the business to begin with. We weren't going to be able to compete with. We had principal, you know, 10 minutes away. So it wasn't going to be we were going to beat them on volume. It was going to be we're going to design Better plans even they would come and approach us. We don't want to do what you're doing because that's not the business there. And they're in the asset gathering business. So from the standpoint of what we could do. Yeah, build a better plan, do a design, try to be creative, you know, just structure that thing, get it going. So that's absolutely. Was always number one because you could make it a win win all the time. I mean, I'm not all the time. Again, certain designs just don't work in certain situations. Yeah, it appreciates it because you come up with that. I had a CPA that used to call me up and say I need to mental. There we go. [25:34] JD: More of the devil's juice. Drink that devil's juice. [25:37] Keith Gredys: I said, does that pain you? Because we as, as a third party administrators have been pigeonholed into this corner of yeah, we're going to win off design versus we want to get into the upper market space. Like I love working with $50 million plans where we can create efficiencies, not just be creative with design. [25:55] Mark: Yet you have to break your structure. And so you have to not just be viewed as a third party administration firm. You have to break it into the various buckets which we tried to do. If you're trying to help with financial wellness, you have that structured. We did a lot of support in our situation with a lot of advisors on investment due diligence. Josh helped them, we had some tools, we helped them out from that standpoint. But the design was again a part of it. That's bread and butter. That's your strength. That's what your people do. But the thing is those advisors, they start seeing all the stuff you're doing, they're bringing you more business because that's the entry. They know you're smarter than everybody. [26:38] JD: I want the advisors to know that selling on funds, selling on fees, selling on your own kind of brand can be difficult. I mean, it's obviously doable. But if you come in with real tangible design solutions that are impacting tax savings and how they approach the government and those types of things in real numbers on a design illustration, it makes the sale a lot easier because you're talking about legit stuff that these decision makers can really quantify. That's. That's kind of difficult to do with funds and fiduciary and fees and stuff. [27:15] Keith Gredys: So again, Keith said it earlier too. If we want to give advisors a nugget, then you got to be educated on who fits with a cash balance plan. Because right now there are so many 401k plans that are heavily funding their profit sharing that are already giving enough to their employees to go ahead and set up a cash balance and put away a couple hundred thousand more for each partner, reward their executives in a different way. Yet very few advisors are able to identify those. And if they're not a client of a third party administrator, they're not getting identified in the bundled world. [27:52] JD: Yeah, cash balance is huge. And my God, the amount of savings and the numbers you can do on a cash balance will knock people's socks off if the census lines up. Right. [28:02] Mark: Well, you do need to make sure that you have actuary that understands cash balance plan as well. You got your pension actuaries and your big firms. That's totally different than let's say the smaller type solution. And then within that there's the conservative actuaries. And we just did a design for somebody. We decided to take Doug and since don't have the actuarial firm anymore. So we took it out to a couple different groups and the extreme in terms of what the calculation was, this is what we thought the number would be. So we go to one actuary and they said no, you can't do that. We used to do it all the time. Can't do that. We went to another actuary and they go, oh yeah, you can do that. Plus I can do this in addition to that. So just like there's differences in third party administration firms, there's differences actuaries. [28:56] Keith Gredys: Yeah, there is no real difference though, right. It's all just about leveraging the tools that they have. Some actuaries know what to leverage and some are willing to get more risky. We're a conservative third party ministry. I have folks come to me that says do a, do a floor offset plan for us and give these folks nothing and give a whole shit done to our partners. And I tell them no. And they're like, well you can do that. That's legal. You're right, I'm not doing it. It's going to blow up on you. I can see the census, we never [29:23] Mark: took it that far either. But even within this one I was talking about was pretty standard. We never stretched the limit. We didn't need to. Jason. Just because most people don't want that much money in. [29:33] JD: Jason just got a vote for me for. [29:36] Keith Gredys: And that's a joke. I hear that. Well, maybe it's just geographically where you're at. I have a dozen third party administrators selling that in the Bay Area, Jason. So it's constantly that high. [29:48] JD: Chad, I used to say that design and people were shocked as a third party administrator that I'd say this. I'd say design isn't very effective in the mid to large market and other third party administrators would get upset with me. And I think maybe my statements are a little pessimistic. So I want to ask Keith first, as an advisor, if you walk into a 200 person plan, do you agree with my thoughts that design is less of an opportunity or do you still feel like, no, no, no. I might be able to uncover something here, some type of improvement that they haven't been offered before that they haven't seen or considered before? [30:30] Mark: Well, yeah, I mean the thing is, if you can establish yourself as being able to, you're creative in terms of what you're doing, you can be creative in a 200 person plan as well in terms of the structure of the match. Because there's still so many. I mean we just did one for actually a $120 million plan with thousand employees, $1 million. And they structured the plan. They were just wanted to redo the match. [31:02] Keith Gredys: Yeah. [31:03] Mark: So we went through some stuff back and forth. They said, can we do this match? We came back, said, no, you're going to violate the safe harbor rule. But we came in with an alternative safe harbor that would satisfy them. And they're going, oh, that'll work. But you had to think through it. And this also involved another record keeper that was trying to say we know what we're doing as well. But you come in and you show that value because you're creative and you're thinking through all the ways to satisfy the rules and still accomplish that goal. So there's value even in just a $50 million plan. You can do a lot of that. To me, it's still optimizing. They still going, here's my budget. What can you do with my budget? [31:49] JD: Right. It may not be showing them a cross tested profit sharing allocation, but it's something different. I think you're right, Keith. I think a lot of times we forget that these businesses get so busy running their business and running their plan that the concept of design doesn't come up a lot in the review. And so eight years could go by and maybe the whole time they were thinking, geez, we'd really like it if our match was set up this way. But they didn't know that they could do it that way until someone explains it to them. So I don't know. Chad, you disagree or agree with my old comments of yeah, design isn't really your number one thing you should be looking for in a 200 person plan. [32:29] Keith Gredys: I 100% agree. You said the number one thing. It is important and Keith is right. There are certain levers that you can pull and you can, you can do some good work in there. I think from a, from a compliance perspective, our ability to be more creative on the testing side, to restructure testing is more valuable perhaps than the upfront design work that can be done. I think those larger plans need, in terms of order of importance, need to be looking elsewhere. But the design is something they need to be considering. And I mean those larger plans, if someone's not talking to them about stretching out a match or altering the match to target certain groups like you're failing, then guys, that's a very large plan which should have elite providers at every level. If that's the case, then we're failing in that space. [33:20] JD: This kind of dovetails into the next topic that Keith had brought to me. I'm going to call it improper fiduciary processes. So Keith, why don't you remind us in the audience what you think the typical process looks like these days. And we're kind of shifting now from, from a tpa, but to an advisor perspective, you know, going in and doing these reviews with their clients. What does it look like these days? [33:47] Keith Gredys: Both. Did Mark get them? [33:48] JD: Okay, got it. What does it look like these days? And then where do you think there gaps exist? You know, jd. [33:56] Chad: That was for jd. Oh, sorry. Okay, [34:02] Mark: so say the question [34:05] Keith Gredys: keeps getting dry. [34:07] JD: I'll set you up. So typical advisor is going to go in, they're going to review the investments. [34:11] Mark: I got it, I got it. [34:12] Chad: I caught up. [34:14] Mark: I'm old, you know, it takes a while to get to the gray matter. [34:17] JD: It's the devil's juice, buddy. It's the devil's juice. [34:20] Mark: That's right, it is. I need a little intravenous going. Who the. From the standpoint, it seems like because of trying to get more and more advisors qualified to serve as three. [34:39] Keith Gredys: You can say that. [34:40] JD: Yeah, that's good. [34:41] Keith Gredys: You can say 38. [34:42] Mark: Those types of things that are sort of like, say all you have to do is this. A, B and C. You go in and we got a little screen for you and you go through that. So there's a lot of that going on where all they're doing is an investment, due diligence, and they have no idea that that's just like one out of eight things that really should be covered in Terms of handling a plan from an advisor, from a fiduciary aspect. So, you know, it's just a, you know. [35:14] JD: Keith, are you a big, you're a big Don Tron fan? There's an image around here of you holding your hand to your heart and Don pledging to the, your fiduciary. I don't know what the fuck's going on, but I don't know if Brandon has that anywhere. But. And so is that kind of what you're talking about too, is this whole like, hey man, we got to go deeper on this fiduciary stuff? [35:35] Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, that's, you know, from the standpoint of Don Trone. I was early on with him on the accredited investment fiduciary. He actually taught me on that one. And then now he's got the center for Board Certified Fiduciaries trying to expand that as well. And board certified Fiduciary actually trying to get lay people to get certified so they know what it is because there's like 18 million people serving as fiduciaries around outside of plans. And you have all these big numbers. But it's all about the process and things like that. But the way I look at it, it's not any different than a third party administration firm in terms of all the stuff you have to go through. The same thing as on the fiduciary process. I mean, the way we look at plans is we go in, yeah, you're going to talk about the investments, we're going to talk about plan design, we're going to talk about how the administration's going. We're going to talk about the compliance test, we're going to talk about financial wellness. And so the investment side maybe takes only 20% of the meeting. The rest of it is actually, how's the plan? Is the plan working? And that's really, to me, that's a whole fiduciary process that gets expanded. But the, you know, from the standpoint of wearing a fiduciary hat, you can see I get a little excited about this. You need to actually do what's best for that. Participants, the plan sponsor, everything else. I mean, all I've ever done is fiduciary work my entire career. So I, I sort of, maybe I'm one of these freaks, but that's, I've been doing it for 40 years. [37:07] JD: No, you're, you're preaching the choir. You're preaching the choir with us. Chad, you had some. [37:11] Chad: No, you're, you're pretty much a freak. [37:13] Keith Gredys: Yeah, pretty much free. I was just gonna say. It's funny to hear Keith say that. And you're. You're completely right. But the truth is, I don't sit on a bunch of the fiduciary reviews, but every single one that I do that focuses on things like investments and fiduciary process, that is not at all what that committee wants to hear. The three employees that are in the room that are part of that fiduciary committee, they want to hear about investments. That is it. They don't care about anything else, but they want to hear about the rate of return and what the market outlook is by that advisor. And then the HR person wants to hear about procedural prudence. Oh, yeah, you got. [37:51] JD: Yeah, nice. Keith. [37:52] Keith Gredys: That human resources person wants to hear about the process and making things easy. If the owner is in there, which is so seldom. That person wants to hear about the topics you just discussed, liability, the liabilities. The committee does not. It's what we need to be talking about. The truth is, it's not what our clients want to hear. [38:12] Mark: Well, maybe the benefit I've got in terms of my book of business and the one that I have, I require them to be in the. They are part of the committee. They need to know. [38:24] Keith Gredys: You just mentioned. What'd you say earlier, a couple thousand employee company with 150 million in assets. That business owner sitting in your fiduciary view key. [38:33] Mark: Oh, that one's not. [38:35] Keith Gredys: Yeah. [38:37] JD: I think when you have companies of that size, though, you do have people that are working there that are taking that responsibility on behalf of that owner. Seriously. Like, they definitely take their orders from higher ups and they want to make sure things are done right. And they're usually professionals in that space. When the companies get to that, that size, this kind of dovetails with your other thoughts. Keith, I want to ask you about which is. And I'm not. I'm not going on a. On a pooled employer plan rant right now, I promise. [39:09] Mark: Go ahead. [39:10] JD: But we've got into. My audience is sick and tired of it. We've got an industry that's moving towards a trend of, hey, plan sponsors come to us and you don't have to do jack shit. Like, it's all going to be done for you. You can outsource it to these professionals. And you made a comment that I'd written down here. You said plan fiduciaries need to understand what's going on. They can hire the right partners, but they have to play a role in this. So you Cannot be happy with the way the industry is trending towards telling them that they don't have to know shit about the plan. [39:49] Mark: Well, that'll be your next set of lawsuits, right? You know what's going on? You know, do you know what your fees are? Do you know? No, I was told I didn't have to worry about it and so be on. [40:01] JD: I also feel like it's. [40:02] Chad: Oh, oh, that was checks. [40:07] Mark: I got it. [40:08] JD: You looked like. [40:09] Mark: I still have a drink though. [40:10] Keith Gredys: I was curious from your guys perspective, what percentage of lawsuits do you think are actually going after a plan sponsor versus the financial institution or one of the service providers? I get it. It might be a high bit of both. [40:26] JD: A lot of them. No, most of. I think most of them are at the plan sponsor. Yeah. [40:32] Keith Gredys: I feel like the name group that they're. Because of the deep pockets, because of the ones I'm saying even though we [40:38] JD: talked about today with Ravi and Voya is that's them going at the plan sponsor. They're going at Voya, the plan sponsor. Like almost every single loss. [40:50] Keith Gredys: I get it. I get that. I'm saying that the majority of them, I feel like the group that they're trying to go after, to Keith's point about outsourcing and you're shitty. The responsibility, the group that they're trying to go after usually is the ones making these decisions. If they're outsourcing those decisions, does that, does that process change? Is the lawsuits going after the plan sponsors, the lawsuit going after the record keeper or the group making those decisions? [41:21] JD: That's a deep debate and I think people jump on both sides. But I think no matter what you're doing these days, even in the pooled employer plans, there still is a string tied to the plan sponsor. Right? [41:35] Keith Gredys: Always will be. There's no way of getting around that. [41:37] JD: They're never going to get out of the aim of the gun, you know, like it's always going to come back to them and if they're negligent on their side. I agree with Keith. I wrote my notes here that my thought is that whole type of industry where you outsource it is going to implode because we all know enough about our business to know that plan sponsors still have to play some kind of role. And so if we teach them that they don't have to do anything, things are going to bolts are going to start falling off. You know, I don't care if it's late deposits, if it's, you know, mistakes and aren't being fixed. If it's not letting people into the plan when they needed to be let into the plan because of eligibility, there's going to be all these little boring kind of day to day things that are going to go horribly wrong. And then it's just going to be a big mess that's going to be. Need to be fixed later. And so we'll see. [42:28] Keith Gredys: We covered this on will show, but he just said train them. We tried to get into this when Hackler was on the show. It is so important for the client. [42:38] Chad: We actually talked about something productive with [42:40] Keith Gredys: Hackler, what their responsibilities are, trying to get them to get that work done and to understand how to do it. It's just so. Damn. [42:49] Chad: What's going on with the ties there, Keith? You just changed your tie. Did you spill notices? [42:55] Mark: This is a Grinch this time. [43:00] Chad: You're like a funny. A funny tie guy to go with your cool socks. Is that your deal? Like, what's up? [43:05] Mark: My socks got Santa Claus socks. [43:07] Chad: Keep your pants on, man. [43:08] JD: Keep pants on. [43:09] Chad: This is a show for family. [43:12] Justin: Tell Jason Lee that. [43:14] JD: I see it more like the like when like some celebrity hosts some awards, you know, and they come out in a new outfit. Keith's just changing it up. [43:21] Chad: Yeah, he's a. [43:23] JD: Let's stop and play. [43:24] Mark: I'm a new guy right now. [43:25] JD: Let's play a little game, shall we? Let's play a little game. It's. It's got a little tune that I love to hear. Play the little tune for me, Brandon. Thank you. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things. [43:41] Keith Gredys: I think I know the answer. [43:44] JD: Which thing is not like the other. By the time I finish this song, I think Brandon's. I think Brandon's been drinking Jack and coke in the back there. [43:55] Keith Gredys: He ended up. [43:57] Justin: Okay, zoom in. [43:59] JD: You do not have a time limit here. But what we have here are wrappers. [44:04] Chad: Yeah, look at these. This is great. I guarantee if you didn't have it highlighted earlier, Chad would not have known this. [44:13] JD: And if you watch the show, then this one's kind of a layup for you. Cause there's a little hidden little secret in there. But which one of these is not a real rapper? Keith. And yes, three of them are. [44:32] Chad: Can you say them all out loud, JD So we can hear you say them? [44:37] JD: Pooh shiesty. [44:38] Chad: There you go. [44:38] JD: Gucci and the Lambo. Young boy never broke again. That's one of my personal favorites. And a boogie with the hoodie. [44:47] Mark: Little Young boy. [44:50] JD: No, Youngboy never broke again. As Mark Will tell you as a current rap star is doing quite well. A Boogie with the hoodie just came out with a new album a few weeks ago. [45:03] Mark: Gucci and the Lambo. There you go. [45:05] JD: There you go. Gucci and the Lambo. [45:08] Chad: I mean, Gucci Mane does drive a Lambo, though. [45:12] JD: So that's a reference to Gucci the monkey, my little pet that I drive around in my Lamborghini with. [45:18] Keith Gredys: All right, like how I came up [45:19] Justin: with that and you're completely stole it as it's yours. [45:22] JD: You're one for one. [45:24] Mark: I thought that was. [45:25] JD: Wait, hold on. [45:26] Chad: Justin, you actually came up with Gucci the monkey? [45:29] Mark: Yeah. Yep. [45:30] Chad: That was all you. [45:31] Justin: It was all me, buddy. [45:32] Chad: Oh, that's funny, because I for sure thought it was J.D. [45:35] Mark: i would have as well. [45:37] JD: Okay, next one, please. One for one. All right. [45:41] Justin: Yes, I do. [45:42] Mark: Jg. [45:42] Chad: Thank you. [45:43] JD: This one is classic. Old school. I'm not going to give you a hint. You got to have which one of these things is not like the others? Keith. [45:50] Chad: God, there's a lot of directions you could go with this. [45:52] JD: Don't look at the chat bar. I don't want anyone in the chat bar cheating for him. But chat bar. Go ahead and guess. But Keith, do not look. [45:59] Mark: So what am I supposed to do? Pick 1, 2, 3 or 4. Sure. I have no fucking idea. [46:07] JD: To be honest with you. I'm not sure I can name all of their names either. But I do know the second one is Justin Timberlake. Then you've got Lance Bass. And then you've got two boy band sidekicks. I. AJ I believe is the guy's name on the right. [46:23] Chad: And is it Chris on the left? [46:25] JD: Is that maybe. Any guesses? [46:28] Mark: We'll go with. Go with just Justin. [46:31] JD: No, no, Brandon, go ahead and show us. Yeah, so the three to the left are all part of NSync. AJ is part of the Backstreet Boys. [46:44] Chad: Just so you know, I just heard [46:45] Mark: the earlier intro was. Was not quite correct. I got seven kids and 13 grandkids. J.D. [46:52] Chad: your button got pushed there. I believe the band name that you just said is. It is initials for all of the guys in the group. [47:00] JD: Really? [47:01] Chad: No, I do believe. Yeah, it is. [47:03] Keith Gredys: Look at Justin. Justin knows. [47:05] Mark: Google it. [47:06] Chad: Dude, it's their middle name. It's. It's something. It's something like that. Last names. [47:13] Justin: I gotta Google this. [47:14] Chad: This is do it, boy. Yeah, I'll drink for it. [47:18] Keith Gredys: If it's not Chris, Joey, Last in jc Last letters of the first names of members of the group. [47:25] Justin: Son of a. [47:26] JD: Way to Go. Okay, we're running out a little time. Let's play the last one. Brand. We got one more. [47:33] Mark: Okay. [47:35] Keith Gredys: Only one's never been to jail. [47:39] JD: Mark, do you have any guesses on this one? [47:44] Chad: Yeah, give me one. Plenty of guesses. [47:47] JD: Give me one. Oh, [47:54] Chad: You know, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna say. I don't know, just say, Justin, do [47:59] JD: you have a guess? Do you have a guess? [48:01] Justin: I'm always gonna default to me. [48:03] Mark: What? [48:03] JD: Why would it be. [48:04] Justin: I don't talk. I don't know. [48:06] Chad: I would just say that it's J.D. because he's the only one. He's not wearing a suit in the picture. Let's go. [48:13] Mark: There you go. [48:14] JD: Yeah, go ahead, Brandon, you can. There's no real answer. I just wanted to see what you guys would say. [48:21] Keith Gredys: I was gonna say only one's under £200. [48:26] JD: I was gonna. I thought so. [48:27] Mark: Wow. [48:29] Keith Gredys: One of them, One of them. [48:31] JD: One of them apparently has. Doesn't have kids. Yeah. I didn't know. Like, I had no idea. I know. I also want to see what the audience, if they had any good insights on that, we'll move on. I just took a stab at something I don't know, I ran out of. [48:43] Justin: He's trying to get us all to talk shit on each other. [48:45] Keith Gredys: Yeah, for sure. He was. [48:47] JD: Yeah, kind of. I was hoping it would kind of self implode itself. [48:52] Keith Gredys: I tried talk. [48:53] Chad: You're jd. You're really an implode guy versus an explode guy. Please tell me the difference and why [49:00] JD: I feel like imploding is something you've done to yourself. Yeah, hackler agrees with me. Yes. [49:06] Justin: Think about it, what it does. One goes in, one goes out. [49:08] Chad: No, but earlier, earlier you were talking about something industry related. You said it's going to implode. Then I was like, shouldn't it explode? I don't know. [49:17] JD: No, I'm with. Falling on itself implodes. It's. It's something that you've done to yourself. It was avoidable. You. You could have avoided it. But an explosion is just something that just. It's a physical act of Advisor. And I had put advisor and third party administrator relations as something I wanted to discuss, but I'm going to reword it in this new theme of Advisor and compliance Administrator relations. Okay. And Keith, I think you've got a really good perspective on this given the companies that you've run and sold and where you're at today currently. Let's talk a bit about how important do you think it is in running your current business to efficiently work with and lean on. And I say compliance administrator because it could be a bundled provider or an unbundled provider, but there's got to be a dance that happens between you and your partners, right? That sounds a little creepy. [50:18] Mark: Slow drink to that. [50:23] Keith Gredys: Keith needs the right one. [50:27] Chad: God damn it, I love that laugh. [50:30] Mark: So the question is there has to be. Yeah, there is. [50:35] JD: I love this. This is the way this show is supposed to go down. Like I literally. [50:41] Chad: We've hit, we've hit the 50 minute mark. It should go downhill from here. [50:45] JD: The more times the guest says, what was the question? [50:48] Chad: The better the show's gone, the better the show. You're actually climbing the ranks of our best guest ever, I must say. [50:55] Mark: No, I mean, I'll wait till we do in person. [50:59] JD: I mean, if you're running an advisor shop, you've really got to trust and lean on the people at your record keeper that are doing the compliance work if it's bundled, or the third party administrators that you've partnered with because, you know, you've done that side of the business. You know how complicated it is. And so how do you manage that these days? [51:20] Mark: Well, you still got to do your due diligence on them. And I mean, personally, I've known a lot of them over the years. You go to conferences, you know, who's bullshitting, who's, whatever sometimes. You see, when we were at third party administration firm, we saw a lot of their work and you're going, oh, crap. I would never use this firm from that perspective. So it's just a matter of, you know, I learned a lot. You know, going to conferences and all the stuff that you guys do. You learn so much about different folks. And a lot of it isn't so much during the day when you're, you know, attending the stuff. Most of what I learned is after midnight. [52:01] Chad: Yeah, me too. [52:03] Mark: So you learn a lot of that talking to the folks and seeing what's going on. But you have to have the relationship. You got to know that. And the unfortunate thing in the record keeping business is the wholesalers turn over occasionally. So there's some that have been around, but you gotta be able to talk to them, get stuff done. If they're actually paying attention to you, you're gonna pay attention back. So it's that type of stuff. On the TPA side, do they know what the hell they're doing? [52:35] JD: Drink it up, Keith. [52:36] Mark: Thank you very much. [52:37] JD: Chad, give us some of those tasty nuggets. [52:39] Keith Gredys: Well, I was going to ask You a question first. [52:42] Chad: Yes, Hackler, you're exactly right. [52:44] Keith Gredys: Do you really think most advisors make a decision on those partners based upon product or service or is it based on relationship? [52:53] JD: I think that close to zero of them choose compliance administrator like a bundled compliance administrator based on what they do for that job. Like, I don't think any advisors go to a bundled administrator and ask them how do you do the compliance work? How do you prep the 5000 500s? How do you do your testing? [53:15] Keith Gredys: I mean, I know one advisor that does that. Jd. [53:18] JD: I don't think very, very, very, very few of them do that. Which I think is odd and kind of the point I'm trying to get to a little bit. So no, I don't think they pay attention at all. I think when they're looking at third party administrators, they tend to get more in that headspace, which is strange to me. And that's kind of my nugget is you guys should be doing guys and girls should be doing that. [53:39] Keith Gredys: Really? Yeah, really. So, so you think if, if Mark and Justin are trying to work with an advisor and they're looking at other third party administrators, that they're really focused in. It's, it's relationship, dude. It's, it's, I would say 95% of the time now. You got to be able to back it up with the work. Don't get me wrong. To Keith's point, like if you're, if you don't know what you're doing and you're not doing good work, then they're gone. But it is so relationship based. You gotta find someone you enjoy working with that you can trust. It's gonna go to bat for you, that's gonna pick up the phone when you call, that's gonna be accountable when mistakes are made. That's a relationship, that's not a provider. [54:18] Mark: Well, and that gets back to the thing, as I always told people, you know, when they say, why do we want to use you? I said, it's not when things are going well that you're gonna worry about us. When things aren't going well, that's when you need us. Because we're the ones that are there [54:33] Keith Gredys: to fix it for you. [54:35] Mark: And that's true of the advisors is through certified public accountants. I gotta watch my drink again. [54:41] JD: Nice work. [54:43] Chad: No, six more minutes to go. Keith, you're okay, man. [54:47] Mark: I think I got a whole bottle to go through. [54:50] Chad: Okay, never mind it. [54:51] JD: I don't. I think you're right, Chad. Actually, I know you're right. Of Course, they don't ask those types of, of questions. But I'd love to see the industry start to dig deeper into the compliance work because I feel like their clients expect that of them. And I don't think these things should be relationship driven. I think you should, that's fine, have a great relationship with someone, but vet them out, find out about the quality of the work, find out about how they go about things. You know, there's so many of you out there that I think focus on price, like that's how you look at things. And you go, oh, well, this third party administrator over here is going to do it for half the price of this one over here. And what you should be asking yourself, if you had half a brain, is why is it half the price? And the answer is underneath, you know, behind the, because it's a good deal. And those are the types of questions that you should be asking to find out why something's more affordable and maybe it still works for you. Maybe the corners that they've cut or the efficiencies that they've done internally. And Keith knows what I'm talking about because he's run a third party administrator shop before. Maybe you're okay with those and you don't think that there's some kind of disservice to your clients, the types of clients that you work with. And then, fine, you go with that cheaper administrator. But if you're not asking those questions, then I don't consider you a professional and I don't think that your prospects are in good hands. You need to up your game, and that's JD's numbers. [56:22] Mark: Whoa, whoa, whoa. [56:23] Chad: Coming from the guy showing a little meat right there. What's going on with your shirt, dude? What are you trying to do to us? [56:30] JD: There's one more button that can go down. [56:33] Mark: Yeah. Wow. [56:34] Chad: Whoa. [56:36] JD: What? [56:37] Chad: Oh. [56:37] JD: I want to ask you about this before we get to the wrap here. Keith, you told me that you got a new role at your office plan. Client advocate, concierge. And concierge. Concierge. Concierge. Concierge. You mentioned concierge and you said that with Keith. Can you say concierge for me now? [57:03] Keith Gredys: Yeah, concierge. [57:06] JD: You mentioned that in our current industry with all the fee compression, that a lot of record keepers, a lot of third party administrators, you know, might be trying to do less because they're making less and therefore things could maybe not be going in the same high quality that they used to. So you have this, you have this new role. Who knows her Shit. Tell me about the advantages of having this person at your company right now. [57:32] Mark: Well, number one, it takes the burden off of me because I don't know as much. That's number one because basically I'm brought part of the third party administration, firm knowledge, right in house. [57:46] JD: Into your advisor shop. [57:47] Mark: Into the advisor shop. So I mean, she's dealing with just like helping scrub senses, just, you know, helping communicate. Right. Today we were reading plan documents. That's exciting. Trying to see the difference in terms of a few things that are coming out in the restatement. So essentially trying to help certain clients and more complicated plans, making sure the restatements are looking right. [58:15] JD: Even though you're not the compliance administrator, bundled or unbundled, you're the advisor. But this is an added value that you're providing well, the client. [58:24] Mark: There's a level of trust in the client that they just know that somebody's looking over everything. You know, not just your normal. While we're doing investments in education, you can oversee. [58:35] JD: If you have bundled administration with a record keeper. This person knows their job. They've been on the other side of the fence. And therefore, if they're trying to fill you with some kind of bullshit about why something wasn't done right or what happened, they can see through that and be more of an advocate for your clients, I'd imagine. [58:56] Mark: Yeah. You can't bullshit the bullshitter. [58:58] JD: Yeah, well, that's cool. So even though as a third party administrator, I'm sure Chad and Justin and Mark would like to say, hey, you know, we can be that kind of partner for you. I think that's a creative idea, to have your own kind of compliance expert inside your advisor shop to help kind of bridge those gaps and those relationships. I think that's smart. [59:19] Keith Gredys: We've seen it before. Jd, Remember when Luciano and his brother, they left the TPA world, became advisors, and they started selling a lot of vanguard and doing a lot of the third party administrator work and oversight. Okay. You're gonna have to figure, you're gonna have to add that one in, Mark. [59:41] Justin: You did. [59:42] JD: You owe one third party administrator. [59:43] Keith Gredys: Okay. When they left their shop and they started the advisory side, they were filling a lot of those gaps. And it wasn't more than maybe three years that they looked back. And when we spent so much time in an area that a good partner would have done for us that we burnt bandwidth, we burnt hours. We create procedures like it. It ate away at margin and it was the wrong decision. [1:00:06] JD: Great pessimistic, but real advice. [1:00:10] Mark: My takeaway in our situation is exploding on the positive side because the clients. [1:00:16] Keith Gredys: That means you don't have a good plan. [1:00:18] Mark: I don't have to. On the benchmarking. I add that into the calculation and the clients have no problem because they're just calling us saying, you know, fix this. You're our go to. [1:00:29] Keith Gredys: So are you still using Newport Group as your third party administrator resource? [1:00:34] Mark: Well, we have a lot of clients still there, so yes, but we're not limited to them. We are beyond our arrangement. [1:00:43] JD: My takeaway from that chad would be is. Okay, well, you just have to think about how you organize it. And you're right. You need to be careful. Don't do something that's going to take you away from your core value and burn hours and be a negative. But maybe there's a. A way to do it that's still effective and efficient. You don't get drugged down into all that minutiae. You still rely on your partners, but you provide it. There's a way to make it work [1:01:07] Keith Gredys: and hopefully there is. There's a balancing act. But you need to stay focused on what drives revenue for your business. [1:01:13] JD: Chat bar champion. My vote is for Jason Lee. When he said, I'll take you to the advisor shop. I'll let you lick the lolly [1:01:26] Keith Gredys: with [1:01:27] Justin: those in your windows tonight. [1:01:28] Keith Gredys: Did he have a back to back? Like have we ever had a back to back cbc? [1:01:32] JD: I'm voting for what I see now. I'm voting for I see. [1:01:35] Justin: Justin, your vote pains me to do this, but I gotta go. [1:01:39] Mark: Jason Grant's. [1:01:41] Chad: Why does it pain you? Please explain. [1:01:44] Justin: I don't want him to get the whole collection. I know what they're trying. [1:01:48] Chad: Wow, that's not an okay. You guys don't want it either. I've never said that. [1:01:55] JD: Mark, your vote for chat bar champion. [1:02:00] Chad: You know what? I am going with Sue. [1:02:07] Keith Gredys: Sue is solid tonight. [1:02:09] JD: Is sue under the npg. [1:02:12] Chad: That doesn't count. It doesn't count right now. We're done. [1:02:15] Keith Gredys: Oh, no. You both are drinking. [1:02:18] Mark: It's after. [1:02:19] JD: It is but just so Brandon. I think Brandon will need to put her up there. [1:02:23] Chad: You know what? Under that acronym, I'm taking this shot. [1:02:26] Keith Gredys: I pre. [1:02:27] Chad: I pre do my shots just in case I get a froze. [1:02:29] JD: So I'll just take the two Jason's and the acronym I won't say again or initialism. Chad, your vote. [1:02:37] Keith Gredys: I'm going Greenfield. And he was good all night. But it was one comment is just Chad have uggs with all these nugs? Yeah. Good. Gigi it was good. [1:02:48] JD: Sometimes value wins, sometimes comedy wins. It's really up to you. Keith. Keith, who's your vote for chat bar champion? [1:02:55] Mark: I'm actually going with Jason Lee because he said after party for Keith. [1:02:59] JD: Okay. Love it. So we got the two Jason's. I'll drink for it. We got nppg, our girl sue and Gigi. [1:03:10] Keith Gredys: Oh, Sue's never won that surprises [1:03:15] Mark: really. [1:03:17] JD: Here we go. Vote away, people. Vote away. [1:03:23] Keith Gredys: I think, I think there's. Let's let some votes come in before I say this, but there a chance that we have a repeat. I don't think we've ever had a repeat. [1:03:34] JD: We've never had back to back. That can be. [1:03:37] Justin: Never had a back to back. [1:03:38] Keith Gredys: I don't think back to back. I mean that wow. [1:03:42] JD: With Hackler, with Greg, with it must have had back to back. [1:03:48] Keith Gredys: Ackler, you had a good night tonight too. You should have got. You should have got a nomination, buddy. [1:03:53] JD: It's always tough when you're the go. When you're the. That's checks. [1:03:57] Justin: No, no, no. [1:04:09] Chad: Greg got no votes. That's wrong, man. [1:04:13] Mark: Tanya, the. [1:04:14] JD: The big dogs. It's tough. You gotta. They gotta be really good to win when they've won a bunch before. All right, Jason, hit me up. You know the drill. You've been there before. Everyone. We're going to. And the boys are finding this out for the first time right now. I'm going to give you next week off for Christmas. It's. It's the 23rd and end of the year bonus, guys. [1:04:37] Keith Gredys: No, it's not. [1:04:39] Justin: I'll do it next week. [1:04:40] Keith Gredys: Hey, Chad. [1:04:40] Chad: Hey, Chad. [1:04:41] Mark: Go yourself. [1:04:42] JD: What do you mean? [1:04:43] Keith Gredys: I'm gonna give you guys your bonus. [1:04:45] JD: So we're taking retireaholics off next week, but we will be back for our final show of 2021 on Thursday the 30th. So we will see you there. [1:04:55] Mark: What? [1:04:55] JD: What? [1:04:56] Chad: Thursday the 30th for our final show this year. Justin. [1:05:00] Justin: No, I know. [1:05:00] Chad: I hear that. [1:05:01] JD: I'm just hoping this is the final show ever. I think so. [1:05:05] Justin: I know time of year and what's going on. [1:05:07] JD: Look how his look the true inside of Justin. He's like, really? We're done. [1:05:11] Mark: No, that wasn't one of the most. [1:05:13] Keith Gredys: That wasn't what we've gotten from Justin in weeks. [1:05:16] Chad: Let's be honest. This thing's been done for a while, guys. Thank you. [1:05:20] JD: Keith, thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for drinking your Jack and coke, thank you for changing your ties and thank you for all your valuable insights. All you that tuned in. Love you, man. I love you. Woo, man. Thanks for being with us. And Brandon, play us out on some music you stole off of YouTube and then we'll go on the after show. And in the after show, Keith, we're just gonna drink a bunch of Jack Daniels and get. [1:05:46] Keith Gredys: I hope, I hope, I hope Brandon [1:05:48] Chad: plays some Pooh Shiesty. Come on.