Plan Sponsor Mistakes & Advisor Selection Strategy

[0:00] Courtenay Shipley: Sorry. [0:01] Chad: It is what it is, you know. Yeah, I'll make up for it with my deep voice. You know, you work for an employer for a year, a year or two, and then you're moving on to a new job. Because, Justin, that's what happens these days. [0:17] Justin: You got the intro going. What are you doing? [0:19] Chad: That's what I do during the intro. That's what I'm supposed to do. [0:23] Justin: Sorry, continue. [0:26] Chad: Then you're moving on to a new job, which is pretty typical these days. 12 times in the lifetime is the average that people are changing these jobs anyways. You've saved up, you know, 4K in the 401K plan and now you get some paperwork right from your past employer. What do you want to do with this money? Do you want to roll it over into your next employer's foreign K plan? Or if you want to get that new big flat screen tv or as, hey, as cap, our champion says maybe you take the boys or the girls to Vegas and you parte a little bit with that 4k. I don't know, you know, you got options. Well, according to the Retirement Clearinghouse, $92 billion leaves the U.S. retirement System. Yes, I'll drink for that every year because of Americans who switch jobs and prematurely cash out. Let me take a swig. Yeah, but don't worry, people. Oh, God. Fidelity, Vanguard and A Light are here to save the day. They're going to solve your problems. And now Empower 2 is on board. The article from 4K Specialist magazine reads, Auto Portability Consortium. Consortium. Consortium. Consortium adds in power Cortanae. Are you familiar with this concept from Retirement Clearinghouse as a portability services network? Yeah. And it's group that now includes Fidelity, Vanguard and now Empower. You familiar with this thing? [2:02] Courtenay Shipley: Yes, definitely. [2:04] Chad: So the idea here is freaking. Instead of having to do rollover paperwork and stuff, I'm kind of piecing the pieces together here. If you leave Fidelity, you're going to Vanguard or you leave Vanguard and you're going to Empower. They're going to just kind of make this shit swap over automatically, huh? [2:22] Courtenay Shipley: Just plumbing, man. They're just building some plumbing. That's it. When I plumbers, when I first heard [2:28] Chad: about it, I was like, why? Like what's the purpose? [2:33] Courtenay Shipley: But now inertia. Stopping leakage. [2:38] Chad: Stopping leakage. I'm thinking it's that $92 billion I just mentioned, right? It's all these, these under 5,000 balances that instead decide to cash out and get that TV or take that trip to Vegas. Now Fidelity, Vanguard and power a light more to follow. Get together in their dark boardrooms and say, I know how we can keep onto this money. We'll just flip it on over easily for everyone so they, so they don't lose it. I don't know. Justin. [3:07] Justin: Yes. Like you got, Are you saying like from the tinfoil hat, like they're just doing it to hold onto the money and trade the money? Is that where you're going at? [3:13] Chad: Well, I will, I will throw my tinfoil hat. And in the article, they state that they, they feel like it'll really help minorities and people of color and people that are poverty stricken, which I can't help but chuckle a little bit. [3:28] Justin: You cannot deny that. But I do like what they're doing. If you said 92 billion is leaving, by the way, you owe one for television too. I mean that's, that's a shit ton of, of assets for, for these people. And you know, we have a problem with, with savings because people are taking their four grand or their thousand dollars just being pushed out right away. And it's not saying. [3:51] Courtenay Shipley: It's just showing up in their mailbox. [3:52] Justin: Exactly. Put them in the position to just do it automatically. We're going down automatic enrollment anyways. Why not just keep going with this? [3:59] Chad: You guys are right. I was trying to take the kind of adversarial point, but I was going to ask you, like, isn't it my right to like, decide whether I want to spend that 3k on a TV or not? And I'm guessing maybe I still will have the rights. [4:13] Courtenay Shipley: You still have the right. This is just making it so you don't have to fill out more paperwork. [4:19] Justin: That's all people want. Like, think, look at how good automatic enrollment works, right? People get into it because they don't have to do a damn thing. And if it's going to be automatically ported over to their new 401k, they're going to be happy about it. [4:30] Chad: Well, God bless you. [4:31] Courtenay Shipley: I mean, come on, let's be real. Like, as an advisor, that would save me loads of time of having to call up, be like, oh, here's how to make out the check. Yes, we're sorry, it's going to take two weeks. Yeah, we're sorry you have to mail it. Yeah, yeah, there's so there's a lot involved in that. [4:47] Justin: And think about it from the, the third party administrators, how often people are pissed at us because we're charging for terminated balances in the account here in the plan. Still, they'll be happy about that too. [4:57] Chad: Good point. Good point. [4:58] Courtenay Shipley: Although I want to track people down like 10, 15 years later. Hey, you're $6,325 is still here. It's still here. [5:07] Justin: You can't shut down your plan because there's a $2,000 balance in it. [5:10] Chad: Although I wonder, do you think Retirement Clearinghouse and that, that's the. You know, the people in the middle of all this. [5:16] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah. [5:17] Chad: Are getting paid just by some kind of contract deal with those vendors where they kick or some cash to them. And there's no fee for this auto. [5:25] Justin: No, no, no, no. I took it from the. The article. It sounded like that there was getting some percentage of assets at least. That's what I. Yeah, yeah. [5:33] Chad: Small percentage. That's what Michael said. Makes sense. Okay. Sorry for being such a negative person on this. That's fine. That's great. Good for us, good for the industry. Well done. Okay, Justin, I would like to take the mid trow and move it closer towards the intro. So it's not really an intro because we've already introed, but it won't actually be a mid trow, it'll be a right now trail. So could you introduce our guest trill? [6:01] Justin: It's announcing. Is that what it is? All right, well, she's here to do a thing that she might regurgit, but given she called nerdy Chad a jackass, just jackass yesterday, without hesitation, I'd say she's right where she belongs. Don't worry for today. Chad's last minute cancellation today has nothing to do with you putting him in this place. He's sick. Joining us today from Alexandria, Virginia, where she resides with her husband, three kids and seven Chihuahuas. She's the president and chief planologist. I lie all the time during these things. [6:28] Chad: Up. [6:30] Justin: And chief planologist, which makes you sound like a barista. I'm sorry. Anyways. Of retirement planology, Courtenay Shipley. [6:39] Chad: I feel like you called her shitley. [6:43] Courtenay Shipley: That was definitely. That was definitely a middle school. And thanks. [6:47] Justin: I'm sorry to bring you back there. [6:49] Chad: No, I want to know. I think I asked this before and you're just really polite. I said, I mean, honestly, am I supposed to call you Courteney the way it's kind of spelled? Or Courtney and you're like. You can call me whichever one. [7:03] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, it's fine. [7:04] Chad: Okay. I'm gonna stick with Court today. [7:05] Courtenay Shipley: There's extra vowels in there. If it helps you remember how to spell it, go for it. [7:09] Chad: You gotta spell things right, bro. [7:11] Justin: I threw that into chat GPT When I was writing these things and it definitely commented on the number of vowels in your name. [7:17] Chad: Did it? [7:18] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah. Thanks mom and dad. Thanks. [7:20] Chad: I bet you guys didn't know collective trusts. I like to call them collective investment trusts, but this title from Plan Advisor magazine says collective trust expected to top mutual funds as the primary target date vehicles in 2023. That's an eye catching headline if you're an industry pro. I think, like, is it collective investment trusts are actually going to take over the leaderboard from mutual funds in the target date fund space. Look at Courtney, she's kind of squinting in this. Does this seem accurate to you? Does this catch you off guard? I should say [8:00] Courtenay Shipley: I'm trying to come up with a valid argument. I guess really large plans, maybe a [8:04] Chad: few of them switched really large plans. And I think there's a lot of big advisors pushing some collective investment trust and big like national advisor groups. I've definitely sat in on a three piece says flex path or things like that. I've definitely sat in on some fiduciary review meetings where I've witnessed advisors say, hey, you're in the American Century target day funds and we can move you to the American Century collective investment trust target day funds and you will save. I'm making up numbers here people, but you know, 12 basis points or something and they're like, oh, sounds like a no brainer. Like let's do it. You know, with a lot, not a lot of discussion there, which I don't think is really merited. I think we've vetted out the whole collective investment trust versus mutual fund debate. I don't think it has a lot of legs. I mean a lot of people that are anti collective investment trust are going to say, oh, there's not tickers. Oh, you don't have history or this or that. But those are kind of like nerdy responses. Like these days there are tickers. If it's like American Trust or Vanguard or Fidelity that's creating them, I mean it's the same methodology that was in place for their other funds. So it's not like some new upstart came out and you don't have information on them. And so it's just the structure. Right. That that is attractive now to our industry. That, and that's what this article references, is a lower cost. But let me give you a. [9:33] Courtenay Shipley: That makes sense. [9:34] Chad: Yeah. [9:34] Courtenay Shipley: I'm just surprised it's going to be the primary vehicle, that's all. [9:38] Chad: Do you have a concern like, like why are you so in love with mutual Funds, Courtney. Oh. [9:44] Courtenay Shipley: I don't necessarily think I'm like so in love with mutual funds, but for all the reasons that you were talking about, it's the friction really, of getting it added to the plan. The plan sponsor having to write, you know, the contracts. [9:54] Chad: How could it so quickly. How could they so quickly catch up? [10:00] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah. Well, that's kind of what I was thinking. Like, wow. Primary vehicle. Okay. [10:04] Chad: I think you nailed it. I think a lot of big plans sat down with their advisors and their decision makers and made the swap over to the collective investment trust at Vanguard, according to Sway tracking. And I'm going to say this because I'm getting hammered tonight, people. Hashtag Tahoe, JD CIT, TDS dropped mutual fund driven funds by 534 billion to 522 billion. More than half a T. Rowe price in JP Morgan's target date assets are held in collective investment trust. And almost a quarter of Fidelity's target date assets are now in collective trust. So big, big numbers out there. I'll drink twice for that. But hey, what's the takeaway? I feel like if you're an advisor and you're not seeing this trend, maybe you need to start opening your eyes. I'm talking to you, Courtney, because you seem very naive. Wait, I got two. [11:04] Courtenay Shipley: Now we got a mix. [11:06] Chad: There's definitely no. There's definitely no bidders in this one. [11:10] Courtenay Shipley: No, that's old fashioned in a different kind of way. [11:13] Chad: Yeah, right there. Old fashioned fashion, not fashionable, JD Just, [11:18] Justin: you know, if you get too far gone, remember I can't host the show. [11:22] Chad: That's my hope. Back to the old days, people. We've been playing it way too conservative around here lately, man. It's time to. I'll give you the pedal to the metal now that. Now that our daddy Chad isn't in the house to reprimand us for being. [11:36] Justin: We can finally have fun. [11:37] Chad: We can finally have fun. All right, let's put the whole collective investment trust. [11:42] Justin: I feel like you asked her a question and then we kind of cut her off. [11:45] Chad: Oh, fine. [11:46] Courtenay Shipley: I'm just here for entertainment. It's good. No biggie. [11:49] Chad: Can I ask the two of you that have a focus not. I don't think in the mega, mega space is. Are we seeing the Hancocks? The empowers, the principals, The John. I said John Hancock. The Nationwide's are the programs for like 20 million and less offering collective investment trust in their lineup of funds? They are okay. [12:12] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, they are now. Yep. [12:14] Chad: So it's a thing. It's a thing. [12:16] Courtenay Shipley: It's a thing. [12:18] Chad: Next headline. Vince Morris of One Digital does his best DJ Khaled impression with. And another one. You know? You know what I mean? Imagine I did that in a cool way somehow. I don't know. [12:35] Justin: I heard it. [12:37] Courtenay Shipley: Good. [12:37] Justin: I know exactly what you're getting at. [12:38] Chad: Yeah, these. Bought another. I mean, I think it was last week we talked to them about buying one. [12:44] Justin: Oh, this is another one? [12:46] Chad: Yes. [12:47] Justin: Oh, I, I couldn't open the link. You didn't send. [12:49] Chad: Wait, say that again. [12:50] Justin: It was. [12:50] Chad: Say it like DJ another one. [12:53] Justin: I can't say, like back to back weeks. Okay, I see what you're saying. [12:57] Chad: Yeah. All right, so they bought it. They bought another one. This one is a team of five. They're called Mid Cap Advisors. They're a team of five. They work with 60 employers. So not that big of a. Of a 401k shop, but they have 450 households. Remember we talked about this last week, people, and so clearly Vince Morris One Digital is. Is in their sights are these plans that aren't just retirement plan advisors but also have. Have this wealth management side. So nothing there. Just wanted to mention it. [13:35] Courtenay Shipley: I think that's kind of across the board. They're looking for as many. As many households as they can in addition to retirement plans. [13:43] Chad: Yeah, right. [13:44] Courtenay Shipley: Well, I mean, all the aggregators can. [13:48] Chad: But when they first started. I think you're totally right, Courtney, but when they first started, I feel like they were snagging all these like, retirement plan experts. Like when they first went out there and they weren't One Digital, but they were resources and Vince got the helm, they were snagging all these retirement plan pros. And now after the One Digital acquisition, they've clearly, like, broadened their strategy and under. And hey, this is convergence, people. Right? This is what we're talking about. We're talking about convergence. One Digital is very aware of it and there's value in a shop that. This here's, here's the chat nuggets. There's value in firms that do both, right, that, that not only do 401k, but do for. But do wealth management as well. Drink the same. Convergence. No. [14:37] Justin: Why? That was. [14:38] Chad: I'm not drinking. [14:39] Justin: Plus, if they got a good, you know, good shop and they've done good quality business, why would they not try to suck them up? [14:45] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, yeah. [14:46] Chad: No, no, no. I just mean they clearly have an eye for wealth management now, which to me, if I'm an advisor, let's see, I'm paying attention to these cit. Damn It, I wasn't planning to do that one we were talking about earlier. And I'm also paying attention to the fact that the industry is moving heavily towards this convergence in a big way. Like it's becoming news now every week. And so we've been talking about on the show for three, four years now. You know, this, this concept that an advisor should be branching out and we still have people in the chat bar to this day that fight and resist that concept and would prefer to be a 401k only type of person. I mean, Courtney, let me take a stab at you. I'm guessing that's you. Am I wrong? [15:31] Courtenay Shipley: It is me. [15:32] Chad: Okay. Drink for that. I'm kidding. It's not a penalty. Yeah. So it still exists. And I think that we need to be wary of the trends and where things are going. So, yeah, one Digital continues to do what they do. Steve Wilkinson, the cold calling guy. Did you see this? [15:53] Justin: That was great. I loved it. [15:54] Chad: So another reminder, everybody. When I, when we talk on this show about people, I forget that they're listening. Guideline. I've done this with T. Rowe Price. I've done that. You know, I get the private messages later. Well, we were talking about the cold calling guy on LinkedIn, Stephen Wilkinson, and last week. Last week? Yeah, last week. I think. [16:17] Justin: I wouldn't say it was talking. We were just giving an honest opinion. [16:20] Chad: Yeah, we didn't think his program, we think his program sucks. It doesn't work well. And he's telling everyone that, no, this is the way you build a million dollar business. [16:30] Justin: His whole comment about everything works, but you know, it doesn't always work well. I kind of was like, that makes sense. You got to be doing a lot of things. [16:36] Chad: Everything works. Nothing works well is his quote. And I just think, well, let's try not to focus on the things that don't work really well and focus on the other ones. He's focusing on cold calling anyways. He didn't take offense. He's, he's, he seems to have a good, he seems to have a good demeanor about it. But he did post a video on LinkedIn today. I think it was just literally hours ago. And he took clips from our show or a clip from our show of Chad giving his program shit and then, and then countered Chad, which is kind of funny. I love that it was nerdy Chad that was called out. So anyways, go, go check that out if you want to. It's on Steve Wilkinson's LinkedIn post. We're going to spin the wheel Justin, you're going to take rope guy Chad, and we're going to see who's going to pound a smear off ice or a little malort, nothing more. And that beautiful, beautiful wheel of ice for me. Can you please. The wheel of I. Oh, tonight's my night, people. I was gonna go into. I can't even open this damn thing. Oh, it's Malort. [17:58] Courtenay Shipley: Malort. [17:59] Chad: I can do that. [18:00] Justin: Wait. Oh, hold on. Is malort. It's not mixed with. All this time, I never knew that. [18:06] Chad: Oh, just a straight up, you know, good, solid. Here we go. All right. I'm going to pound this. And we are going to celebrate last week's chat bar champion. And we're going to go through the list of what was delivered to their house today. Are you ready for that, Courtney? [18:21] Courtenay Shipley: I'm ready. [18:22] Chad: How excited are you on a scale of 0 to 10? [18:26] Courtenay Shipley: 9.8. Bottoms up, man. Cheers. There we go. Get it down. Yes. [18:32] Justin: Oh, boy. [18:33] Chad: Ok. All right. Last week's shepherd champion was the none other than the cat bar champion, Tony Davis. Congrats to him. It was well deserved. I went with the theme this week. I don't know, it just kind of dawned on me as I was deciding what we should buy and ship to his doorstep. And so I went on a theme. What is the theme? You ask Justin, what is the theme? Well, let me start with the first product. Let's see if y' all can figure out the theme. How about that as we go through [19:07] Justin: it, Some type of artificial intelligence theme. [19:09] Chad: Or let's see. Let's put your guesses in the chat bar and what the theme is as we go through this. I got them, dude wipes. Flushable wipes in the mid chill flavor. [19:20] Courtenay Shipley: None of them are flushable. Do not flush. [19:24] Justin: That's what it says on the package, Courtney. [19:25] Courtenay Shipley: And I mean, I'm sure they feel. Yeah, they feel good. But don't flush them. [19:30] Chad: I don't want to use that hard toilet paper. I want to use wipes. [19:34] Courtenay Shipley: Don't flush. Just throw them away. Just throw them away. Because otherwise your toilet is going to become. Your plumbing in general is going to become interactive, and that's not what you want. [19:41] Chad: If they were baby wipes, I would still use them. But you put the name dude on them and then it becomes socially acceptable for me to use. I also got him a Clorox toilet plunger and brush with a carry caddy. So you're set up in the toilet area Now, Tony, I did get you [19:58] Justin: between these two and his emoji I know where you're going with this. [20:01] Chad: In case. In case you run out of those dude wipes, we got you angel toilet paper. 16 mega rolls just for you. We got you some Febreze Odor Eliminating Air Freshener, the original scent with. With Gain the Scent. Why do I do air quotes? It's actually Gain Scent. Sorry. Soft Scrub Sapphire Water Waters Toilet Care. I think these are things you can just drop in the bowl itself, and it'll kind of clean it up. Clorox Disposable Toilet Cleaning System. One toilet wand, one storage caddy, and six. Six, Tony, six refills just for you. [20:41] Courtenay Shipley: Did you send him the cat? You didn't send them a cat, too, did you? [20:44] Chad: Clorox. [20:45] Justin: That would have been epic. [20:46] Chad: A Clorox toilet bowl Cleaner. Clinging bleach gel. Ocean mist. I want to say flavor, but I guess it's scent, not flavor. Don't eat. Don't drink the Clorox, Tony. Yes, we did get you a smarty cat catnip toys and skitter critters just for your little buddy cat you got there. I got you a. A potpourri toilet spray to kind of freshen up the air. And then, unfortunately, shame on you, Instacart. My. My Pepto Bismol and my. My laxatives didn't. They didn't have them in stock, so they refunded me. But why did I get you all this stuff? Well, I also got you, Tony, 12. 12 cans of refried beans. So, you know, I don't know. I figured maybe you'd need it after that. [21:38] Justin: No modium ad or anything in that? [21:41] Chad: No, no, it's. And that's like 120 bucks at that point. So, like, getting out of control, you know? Tony, congratulations. I agree with Three Piece. Wow. Three Piece might get my vote tonight. He says, tony, you're the. Well done. Well done. Okay, Courtney, I. I'm gonna kind of brag about you on. On the Internet right now, Okay? A lot of people are throwing content out there. A lot of them didn't listen to their close family and put out videos and stuff, like, of a real horrible quality and don't have a lot of value in them. I'm really getting tired of all the LinkedIn videos out there. I wish Jake Rushton would slow his role a little bit and stop motivating everyone to do all this kind of stuff. I'm just kidding, Jake. Calm down. But, Courtney, you do it well. You. [22:35] Courtenay Shipley: Thank you. [22:36] Chad: Do it well. Not only when you're just by yourself kind of presenting your own subject and topic, but you also bring in some guests from time to time and talk to them in like a podcast format. And I would recommend anybody out there that's a 401k person to go check this stuff out on her LinkedIn. It's phenomenal. I did a lot of them in prep for this show, but I've seen some in the past. You had me on once before. Yeah, so I was aware of it, but I don't think I was quite aware of how well you do it. And I would, I would put you in that Jeannie Sutton category of top notch places to go to. Kind of get up to speed. Someone had asked you on your show about Secure 2.0 and what you thought about it, and you gave the most glorious like 90 second, two minute kind of overview that knocked all the like, like what it, what you're talking to in layman's terms about what it was and what it meant to the plan sponsor. And I was on the treadmill listening to it and I remember saying to myself, she just nailed that shit. Like, that was so perfect the way you kind of overviewed it. So anyways, everybody go check that out. That's my kissing ass to. Thanks. One of the ones you recently did was top five things that go off the rails when selecting a retirement plan advisor. And don't worry, you don't need to remember what those top five things. I wrote them down myself, so I'll take you through. Okay, great. Give us your take on them. Number one was, okay, so I'm a plan sponsor. I'm trying to hire a new retirement plan advisor. Things that they all fuck up on all the time. [24:15] Courtenay Shipley: Okay, all the time. [24:16] Chad: Number one, haven't actually done any real due diligence. What do you talk about here, Courtney? [24:24] Courtenay Shipley: Oh, just the, like, we grab the nearest person. We, uh, we, we said, oh, you're a financial advisor, you can do our stuff. [24:35] Chad: Oh, you're, you're our, you're, you know, you're our CFO's brother from down the street. [24:41] Courtenay Shipley: Oh yeah, I changed from that nephew's brother's college roommate. [24:45] Chad: So what, what kind of due diligence should they be doing? I mean, this, this 401k stuff is pretty serious. Being fiduciary is pretty serious. Acting in the best interest of the participants is serious. What type of due diligence should it look, I'm already hammered, people. You are. Due diligence, should they be doing. Speak the words out of your mouth, dude. [25:07] Courtenay Shipley: Diligence. Well, I think number One, like, who are you hiring? Do they actually work with retirement plans? Like, come on. [25:15] Chad: That's a good question to start. [25:17] Courtenay Shipley: Those are some. That's a low one, right? [25:19] Chad: It's funny you say that. They don't ask that a lot. [25:21] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, they don't, believe it or not. So, yeah, you should call it due diligence, shouldn't we? Because, dudes, you know, how many. How many retirement plan advisors are women? How many do we know? [25:34] Chad: Oh, I think, like, 18. No way, bro. Those are totally made up statistics nationally. Yeah. [25:47] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah. So that's. That's step one. Like, who are you hiring? What's their firm? Can they spell 401k? Do they know what anything is related to you? [25:57] Chad: Have you heard from some of their current clients? Do they have some referrals? [26:01] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, it's a good one. [26:04] Chad: What's. How long have they been doing. [26:06] Courtenay Shipley: For how long have they been doing this? Do they have credentials that are related to retirement plans? One thing that drives me crazy is, well, they have a cfp. I'm like, that's great. That's a certified financial planner. [26:18] Chad: Drink from that hard stuff. Well, number two was. Was one that I think a lot of. Some ones that actually try to make an effort here do that I've always laughed at, which is instead. Okay, all right, Courtney. We'll do some due diligence. We'll send out a generic request for proposal, right? And we've all seen these things. Like, there's just this laundry list of questions. What. What is wrong with these, in your opinion? Why are they not valuable? [26:48] Justin: The. [26:48] Courtenay Shipley: The laundry list of questions? [26:50] Chad: Yes. [26:51] Courtenay Shipley: Oh, I got one once that asked me how many people I had in my marketing department, and I was like, we have really jumped the shark on this rfp, haven't we? Can you please tell me how that relates? [27:01] Chad: You get it. You get it, though, right? They. They're. They're like, okay, what are the questions I should ask? And then someone. Someone hands them this generic request for proposal with all these questions. They look at and they go, oh, wow, this is really robust. [27:14] Courtenay Shipley: This is good. [27:15] Justin: This. [27:15] Chad: This should really vet out the good from the bad. Here's my problem with them, and I've always felt this way is if you really. If you've ever gone through one and tried to answer it from a vendor's perspective, which I have done on behalf of our company, you can. We talked about this last week. Samson, remember? What did I say that was about making a yes. Like, you can make a yes a yes. I forget what the term Was. But you can answer any question yes if you want to. Like, there's, there's a spectrum of yeses. And so when the questions are yes or no, like, do you do this? You can be like, well, yeah, kind of. I do that. That's fine. If you really could go through the whole thing and be like, it's. You're not getting down to the nooks and crannies and the devil and the details about these things. So that to me is where it's barely worth the paper that it's on because what do you. What are you discovering from. From any of that kind of stuff? So I'm with. [28:09] Justin: How often does it. Is it applicable to. Especially the market we all work in. Right. It's not. It's way overboard. [28:16] Chad: Yeah. Well, for the smaller fun. [28:19] Courtenay Shipley: Fun tip here is that the retirement Advisor Council just put out a shorter RFP that's aimed at like the smaller plan sponsor to try drink again. [28:29] Chad: Courtney. [28:29] Justin: Hey, Courtney. Do you understand what's going on here? [28:32] Chad: Just try it again. Get it going. Another one. No, no, no. I very much agree. [28:36] Justin: You cannot say an acronym or else you have to take a shot. [28:41] Chad: I have in my past when I used to sell plans. Because everyone on this show knows. When's the last time you sold a plan, J.D. but I have gone into clients that had requested those. We filled them out. I was presenting it to them and they started to kind of go through it in like a review of. Of us for as their third party administrator. And I had vocally said to them, like, that's a piece of like, just put that aside. Let's talk about what it is you guys are looking for. Let's figure out if I'm the right size of firm. Where have firms let you down before? Like, you're not going to learn anything from those three pages of answers that we went through. I'm not going to look any different than the next person that comes in. And you know, I think a lot of decision makers appreciated when I said that. Like, it's so ridiculous those things. So I agree with you. The. [29:27] Courtenay Shipley: Well, I think really too, you're just trying to prove that the person can solve your problem, right? That they have the answer. Because this is. It's a big black box. [29:36] Chad: You. [29:36] Courtenay Shipley: You're up against competitors. You're like, oh, yeah, we have a bunch of retirement plans and it's great, and we're gonna, we're gonna solve your problem. And you're like, but are you like, can you really solve our problem? Do you Even can you even define our problem? So that's really what they are. Request for proposal. [29:51] Chad: Check swing. Check swing. Very good. No, you're right. And I, in defense of them, I have seen some that are more customized. And so if a client was more interested in, say, you know, robust education at a variety of locations and they actually carved a question or crafted a question that way, I was like, oh, good for you. Okay. You're actually trying to vet out, like, if this firm can accomplish this. You know, you got six states, you want this this often those are great questions, but you don't see those on those generic ones very often. The third top five things that go off the rails when selecting Retirement Plan Advisor was spreadsheeting it. That was my term. But you brought that up, basing the decision on a spreadsheet on cost. This is something you see plan sponsors doing to this day. [30:42] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, absolutely. They'll come back and say, oh, well, everything seemed pretty much the same, so they were less expensive. Okay, good luck to you then. [30:52] Chad: Make that decision. Justin. I know you and your little wholesaler buddies and your advisor partners, you use these spreadsheets like crack cocaine, do you not? They're so good. [31:03] Justin: When you're doing a cost imperative and, and it comes down to, I think this, you're doing a disservice if you're not diving into that and talking about, hey, here's the pros and cons of record keeper A and record keeper B. [31:14] Chad: Right. [31:15] Justin: If you're just, you know, combining the benefit to the, the spreadsheets that we do, that cost comparative that we create on our team is you're taking a 10 or 15, not 15, 10 page, you know, PDF that the record keeper sent over and saying, hey, here's what we really care about right here. And we can discuss, you know, the pros, cons, services they offer, they don't offer, and who's the best fit. But here's the cost. And I think clients actually appreciate that you're using it. [31:41] Chad: You and your partners are using it as a tool to show that you have allocated the cost. You have compared them. You are trying to show them something they can understand. When it comes to cost, they're confusing [31:54] Justin: as, like, yeah, if you have a plan sponsor with minimal experience diving into those things, they don't know where the hidden costs are or any of that stuff. [32:02] Courtenay Shipley: I would say a plan sponsor with lots of experience does not want to fish through the 12 or 15 pages that they got back from every single vendor. So, yeah, I'm all in favor of putting it in a format that they can read. But like you said, I think it's really important to have the pros and cons. Like, this is what you need to know about this vendor. This is how they're going to solve their problem, Solve your problem. Or, hey, look, the spread between these things is like $2,000, right? So you're not going to go wrong on the price. You're not going to be saving money. [32:33] Chad: You're looking at the spreadsheet, and the basis points are off by 20. But the plan's got 500k in it. And so it's like, you need to, like, put that in perspective, right? It's like, oh, this one's cheaper. Well, it's only a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, but let's be honest. I agree. That's the mature answer from both of you. But you know, you know damn well that there are still wholesalers out there and advisors talking to you that look at those things and go, wait a second, Justin. Oh, my God. Like, Hancock looks so expensive next to their current one. Or we've got a. I don't know, Samson maybe. You know, we got to make this look cheaper, Justin. Or you need to find me a vendor that's gonna. This looks too expensive. Oh, can. Can't you, like, whittle down your TPA fees? I'll drink for that a little bit here. They are obsessed. [33:31] Justin: They absolutely do, because they're selling that. But at times, you know, we are. We are in sales, unfortunately. And at times, it's all the client wants, a year. So at times, you're gonna have to go down that path. But I think overall, if you're doing the right thing and saying, hey, look, yes, you are going to be more expensive, Mr. And Mrs. Record Keeper, but the services and value you bring are going to be easy to sell, you know, and so quit worrying. I love that it's up to us as a partner to actually sell it. [33:58] Courtenay Shipley: Can we talk about lettuce for a minute? Can we talk about lettuce? [34:01] Justin: Sure. [34:01] Chad: I love lettuce. [34:02] Courtenay Shipley: You might have heard this before. [34:04] Justin: What are we talking about here? [34:05] Courtenay Shipley: We're talking about lettuce. So, like, I want to make a salad, I gotta make a salad, right? So I go to the grocery store, I go straight to the salad section. The first thing I pick up is a head of lettuce, right? It's What, a buck 29? Something like that? Some green lettuce. All right, now I gotta take that lettuce. I gotta wash it, cut it, do all the things to it, right? Or I can just walk like five feet down and spend 100% more, maybe 200% more to get a bag of salad that's already made. [34:34] Chad: It's already made. [34:35] Courtenay Shipley: Oh, but wait, I'm running late and I gotta have a fancy salad, right? Because I gotta show up to this party. So I'm gonna go right over to the Whole Foods and I'm gonna go to the salad bar and pay 7.99 and I'm now spending a thousand times more than the head of lettuce. [34:49] Chad: I. I think I'm gonna answer. I think I'm gonna answer this. [34:54] Courtenay Shipley: So which one do you want? Well, it depends on what you need. How late are you running? How fancy do you have to look at the party? You might be willing to spend the money, so just, you know, consider the lettuce. [35:07] Justin: I like it. [35:08] Courtenay Shipley: These are only an issue in the absence of value. [35:12] Chad: Fees are only an issue in the absence of value. And it was Tony or someone in that no. 3 piece in the chat bar said, stop selling price. I've gone on massive rants back in the day, like several years ago. This used to be a consistent rant. I'd go on, which is the. The. The weak spined advisors and wholesalers trying to sell low cost everywhere because they felt like that was the best way for them to win. Plans based on Justin's confident response to how him and his partners deal with this stuff. Maybe the tide is. Is shifting in this space a little bit and this is happening less. And so I'll just shut up and say, thank God that this, this is happening last. Because I hated those times. Hated those times. I'm gonna. No, I'm not gonna skip one. Number four, asking for a cost proposal for you being discuss. Oh, shit. Asking for a cost proposal before you have even discussed services. Okay, we won't rant on the low fee thing, but how funny is this? I was laughing when I heard you say this one. Is this still happening? Justin and Courtney, you probably answer to advisor finds million dollar prospect. Record keeper says, internal record keeper. Wholesaler says, get me total assets. Well, they're a million dollars. Thank you. Get me total participants. There's 50 of them. Get me the flow. Oh, it's got 150k of flow. And then here we can create a proposal for you. Advisor says to internal wholesaler, well, what should my comp be? Internal wholesaler says, ah, million dollar plan. We'll set you up for 50 basis points. Bada bing, bada boom. Proposal is Created. But nowhere in the conversation is the discussion of services and how much is that happens? Chat bar. Tell me that does not happen. Rant, rant, rant, Michael. Apparently I rant when I get fucking wasted. Is that still happening all the time? [37:08] Justin: Especially micro market. [37:11] Chad: Doesn't happen in your world, Courtney, because you tell the wholesaler what you want your comp to be, right? [37:19] Courtenay Shipley: I've already sold the plan, right? Clients buying me first, then they get the record keeper. [37:23] Chad: Oh yeah, love it. You haven't even picked the record keeper yet. But you know that you're going to be 20 VIPS or that you're going to be a billable of 25K. Whatever it's going to be, you already know it. Yeah, but, but to Justin's point, this is happening so often and it's, it's ludicrous to think about, to be honest with you. Like it's, it's literally crazy. [37:46] Courtenay Shipley: What other industry does this happen? Does this happen? Like, do you call up your air conditioning specialist to ask them what their fee is first before they know what they're doing wrong? I mean, it's dumb. [37:57] Chad: I don't know. [37:57] Justin: I deal with so many, so many green advisors who don't know. Like I just have to, I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes I'm just like, hey, don't even ask them. It's like, hey, a record keeper. I need this. This is what the, you know, advisor comps going to be because they have no clue and it's one they're just green for. [38:17] Chad: Well, I think we should try to educate them a little bit and I think plan sponsors would appreciate it. I would be feel very awkward as a plan sponsor or decision maker that if you were placing a Voya proposal in front of me where the comp was already there and I had even had a discussion with you about how many education meetings I needed, how many fiduciary review meetings I needed. You know, whether I needed this or that. Like that's, I, I don't even know how I'm supposed to trust you if you somehow already know what the price is. And, and then it would behoove advisors that want to have a strategic advantage. If this is happening, then you better be the, the guy or girl that's not doing that and the one that walks in after the person who pitched their fee proposal and you say, well, I don't know how I could tell you what our fee structure would be. We don't even know what you want yet. They would be like, oh my God, let's hire this person that they're actually talking some logic here, so. [39:18] Justin: Well, yeah, I think it happens more in the startup market because those plan sponsors don't know what they know. Right. So a lot of advisors get away with not knowing a lot of that stuff and having those conversations. But I mean, obviously in Courtney's world, that doesn't happen. And Courtney, I wanted to ask. So you said you get in and get broke a record from the start before you go out, you know, even talk. [39:40] Courtenay Shipley: We're not a broker, we're an advisor. Sorry, go on. [39:44] Chad: Same. [39:44] Justin: You know what I'm saying? [39:45] Chad: Same, same, same. [39:46] Justin: Sames. [39:47] Courtenay Shipley: No, it's not. [39:48] Chad: Oh yeah, in my world it is, it is same. We'll save that for another show set of laws. But those laws don't get technical with me. That's not another debate. [40:04] Justin: So how often are you going in there and becoming the advisor first before even recommending any changes versus you're coming in and sweeping everything like, hey, we're moving the record keeper, we're moving the tpa. Yep. And you're hiring me. [40:21] Chad: Hmm. [40:23] Courtenay Shipley: It's a little column. A little column B. But I would say nine times out of 10, like, we're having the discussion about what we're going to do first, about what they need, but where the holes are, what the, you know, what the issues are with the plan and how broken it is. If it's just like super underserviced, then maybe we stay with that record keeper. Maybe let's like try and not change everything all at once, but like layer it on if you will. Kind of the. Well, yes. Path of least resistance, I guess. But it's more like, do we just, do we have to get a new car or can we just change these parts out? [40:58] Chad: Can I ask you, Courtney? Like, are there, are there really bad record keepers? [41:03] Courtenay Shipley: Are there really bad record keepers? [41:06] Chad: I mean, I mean, isn't there, is [41:08] Courtenay Shipley: there a record keeper for accuracy and timeliness? Right. And then you're also paying for it the rest of. Of whatever they're providing. So all the education, all the resources, all the whatever. Right. If they can't get the accuracy and timeliness right, then we have a problem. So, yeah, there are some bad record keepers. [41:27] Chad: I guess my point was like, I like the concept of like you coming in as an advisor and saying, hey, let's, let's kind of fix things. Like, because if you're with FOIA Hancock, Principal, Empower, Fidelity, whatever, like, I can't look at any of those and say like, oh, you're with a shitty Record Keeper. It's more about like how do we, how do we manage it within it. And so there is two, two big schools of thought. They're the one, the advisors that come in and say let's move you to something better. And then they're the advisors come in and say, no, there's no bad Record Keeper. Let me just fix this stuff, you know, and get you set up. So that's why I asked. [42:06] Courtenay Shipley: I would agree. [42:07] Chad: Yeah. [42:08] Courtenay Shipley: The last, again, it comes back to like what their experience has been. If they really f some shit up, like that's a, that's a, that's an issue and maybe it's not repairable because of that and they have to move. [42:18] Chad: So you want to be a, you want to be a salesperson in those situations and take advantage of that. But I always feel like if a plan sponsor had a bad experience with Record Keeper X, it's usually a person problem, not a vendor problem. Right. Like it was someone in a cubicle that fucked up. It's not, it shouldn't be representative of the company as a whole. Now if as an Advisor you've got 50 plans with record keeper X and 25 plans or record Keeper Y and you figured out that Record Keeper X has a far better kind kind of internal operations as it relates to service and a ticketing system for getting tasks done, then great, you should, you should go to market with that and promote that. So God bless you. And if you're out there and you know of such of those things, I'd love to hear about them, you know, so we could talk about them on the show. But in general, I feel like most of those companies, I give them a lot of on this show, but most of them are doing the best they can and, and do a pretty decent job comparatively speaking. Let's God, I'm running out of here. Do you want to play it? You want to play to drink or you want to play a game or do you want to talk about another 401k subject? [43:32] Justin: We didn't get to number five. [43:33] Chad: Michael says, well, number five was looking at cost over value so I skipped it. I'm like, we kind of already beat that dog. Don't be dogs. [43:42] Justin: I mean horse. We introduce her to lamer game. [43:44] Chad: Beat the horse game. Damn it. Anything you want to play game, do it. Okay, let's play the. No. [43:52] Courtenay Shipley: Anything to do with naming dinosaurs. I'm really good at that. [43:55] Chad: Oh, I wish I would have known that the non lamer game game got [44:00] Courtenay Shipley: a five Year old. Got to know him. [44:01] Chad: The best game in the world. The totally authentic and totally original. No for dope game. [44:21] Justin: Holy. Ashley's here. [44:23] Chad: Oh, Alex, dude, that picture you put on the Internet of you 10 years ago Looks the same at Napa or whatever. No, I was gonna say you look like you're. You look like you're 15 years old in that I thought. And I'll drink. I said the nap. Association of Plan Advisors. All right, Coordinator way this game work. [44:46] Courtenay Shipley: Do it. [44:46] Chad: Let me swallow the bourbon first. The way this game works is I'm gonna give you a subject, a concept, something pop culture, whatever. You let me know if you're. If you're. Nope. With it or if you're dope with it. And then you're gonna tell us a little bit why. Like why you feel that way. Okay? [45:07] Courtenay Shipley: Okay. [45:07] Chad: I. I've recently been getting back into my running. I got some new running shoes. I'm feeling super fired up. So I've been running. I wouldn't say I'm the best runner on the planet, but I've been driving my car with my wife these days. And we look on the side of the road sometimes and we snicker and laugh and talk about some of these people that are running, but they're not running. They're like walking. I mean, they're. But they are called speed walking. But they look like. No, it's not even speed walking. It's really just they suck at running. And they're running like a 30 minute mile, but they're still waving their arms and they still got the, like the Lycra on and the shit. And I'm like, bro. So anyways, pretending to run but you're actually walking. Are you no per dope on this or I'm just an asshole? [46:01] Courtenay Shipley: Oh, man. [46:05] Chad: First go. [46:06] Justin: Okay. God damn. Go ahead, Courtney. I got something I gotta say and it's in line with the chat bar right now. [46:12] Chad: Hey, man, like, what was the chat [46:14] Courtenay Shipley: we're saying for getting out there? Come on. [46:17] Justin: Yes. [46:19] Chad: Trophy forever. Trophy for exercise. [46:24] Justin: That's how you know you're in California. Because people are being and judging you for trying to exercise outside. [46:29] Chad: Is this your. Oh, it's not even that, bro. If it was that, I'd be like, I'm down. I'm talking about this person's going slower than a walking person. Like, if someone's walking their dog, they're gonna pass them. But they got on their running shoes. They're going, go ahead, Jim. [46:45] Courtenay Shipley: Did you talk to them about it? Hey, you're running real slow. [46:50] Chad: I do the right thing. I just talk about them. Justin, are you dope on this? [46:55] Justin: Hey, as long as. If you're out there doing your thing, getting some exercise, getting some sun, you know, all the power to. [47:02] Chad: You're okay. All right, well, here's the. The says, look, okay, Based on my visual assessment of what you're doing, this is highly accurate. This is probably not the form of exercise that you should choose, because if you want to go for a walk, go for a walk. That's a great form of exercise. Like, just go out and walk. Like, I'm. I'm cool with that, especially if you're a grandma or a grandpa. But if you're gonna. [47:31] Courtenay Shipley: You just caught them for a second, and they were in between runs. Like, what if they're doing interval running and they're watching? [47:38] Chad: Courtney, you had your chance to answer. This is my chance. Okay? But if you're going to decide to go out and run, then run. And if your knees can't do it, your ankle can't do it, your fitness, whatever, then maybe you should be on the bike, or maybe you should be doing Pilates or something else. I don't know. We'll go on the next one, because I'm getting tired of seeing these. Okay, you're at a restaurant, and they give you the menu. It's time to figure out what you want to eat. [48:07] Courtenay Shipley: Michelada. [48:09] Chad: Oh, I love those. And. And you. You pull out your phone. You turn on your flashlight so you can read the menu. Are you. Nope. Or dope on using your flashlight in a restaurant to. To lighten. [48:22] Justin: Why don't you wear some glasses, man? [48:25] Chad: I mean, wait, let me drink this beer as fast as I can. I'll get more angry. Courtney, it's you first. Nope. Or dope on a flashlight to read the menu. [48:34] Courtenay Shipley: Why are we hating on these people, man? They're just trying to order. [48:37] Chad: Because I'm drunk and I'm angry. Go. [48:43] Courtenay Shipley: Can we talk about your hat instead? [48:46] Chad: We'll do that last. We'll do that last on. On the flashlight. You're dope. That's what you're saying, so say it. Say dope. [48:55] Courtenay Shipley: I just don't care. Like, I don't even have an opinion on this. [48:58] Chad: Whoa. [48:59] Justin: Yep. [49:00] Chad: Someone's pulling robe guy tonight. Justin, are you. No. For dope on flashlight. For the menu. [49:06] Justin: Do what you got to do, man. I mean, what if it's just a dark, you know, ambiance in there and you need a little flashlight? [49:11] Chad: Getting old. I'll Tell you what you do. [49:13] Justin: I. I'm sentimental towards this because my parents are getting to that age right now and, you know, they're having to put on the glasses and they need a little bit more light. It's like, yeah, fine. [49:21] Chad: I'll tell you what you do. You don't succumb to those withering away skills. You say to yourself, maybe I'm getting. Maybe I'm getting personal here, Courtney. Maybe this is me. Maybe I want to pull the flashlight out. But you say to yourself, I'm at a Mexican restaurant. I think I could take a pretty good guess at what's on the menu and not look like an old guy that has to pull his phone out to read it. So I'm just going to take a stab that they've got two beef crunchy tacos and order that shit and I'll look like and actually read it. I don't know. Maybe that's what you do. [49:53] Justin: Yeah, but when they come out there, shit on it. You don't like, you're going to be bitching about it. You're going to send it back and you just buy. The flashlight is going to just be [50:00] Chad: chowing down on exactly what you just suck it up. Okay. I was going to move on, but I'll go ahead and let Courtney discuss my headwear if she'd like to. [50:09] Courtenay Shipley: I just thought it was lame. [50:10] Chad: Yeah, good call. [50:11] Courtenay Shipley: That's all there is to. [50:14] Justin: You always drink, like, dark liquor or is this a new thing and I'm. No. No. Jd. I'm wondering if there's, like, a. [50:20] Chad: No. [50:20] Justin: You know, connection between dark liquor. Like, I have friends who, when they drink whiskey, they're. They're angry drunks. And I'm wondering if that's the same thing happening here. [50:27] Chad: Maybe. Maybe. I hope so. Give me some clues on how to be more angry. No. I don't know. I'm trying to be entertaining for people, and the only way I can be entertaining is to, like, be an asshole. Yeah, that's my go to Courtney. [50:41] Justin: You're welcome on the show anytime. [50:43] Chad: Right? She fits right in. You, Courtney, you recently on LinkedIn. Everyone told you this before. You had a conversation with a great woman. I should have. I should have got her name, but I'm an. So I didn't. Okay. Human resources specialist. And you all sat down and you talked about Compensation strategies was the title, which I thought was. Was really cool. It's about 45 minutes again. I recommend everyone check it out. Run out of time. So I'm going to kind of Fast forward to the end of what you guys talked about because you talked about, hey, compensation, total rewards, working from home. And she was very good about like, hey, take care of your employees. Make sure you're attentive to their needs and giving them good directions. And so it's all great stuff. In the end, there was a conversation about inflation and how employees are feeling inflation. You mentioned the cost of eggs, which is a thing apparently these days, right? Cost of eggs, and asked her like, hey, honestly, like, how do employers deal with the fact that employees are coming to them and saying, look, things are costing more? Inflation is, is out of control from what they're used to because we had no inflation for over a decade, or don't quote me on no inflation, but like, it's been, you know, pretty tamped down for a long time. And so we've seen gas prices spike last summer and all this kind of stuff. And so this. I have seen my own clients deal with this question and advisors kind of talking them through it of like, employees coming saying, hey, I need my raise, I need my cost of living adjustment. You know, I need these things because it's harder to live these days and get by. She did a great job kind of responding to it of like being sensitive. But I wanted to get your take on this. Again, I've seen this conversation in front of a lot of clients recently, and now the clients are responding with, okay, yeah, but that inflation hit us so quickly. Like, that was a very quick spike in this stuff, which is now starting to come down. And now the same time our employees are saying, hey, up our pay because times have been tough. We're dealing with rumors of global recession, national recession. We're seeing huge companies laying off thousands of people. We're concerned about the stock market and these interest rates that we're dealing with that the Fed's holding strong and going to kind of keep notching on some points. Is this first, second or third? And if I can't respond to that right now. And so they're, they're kind of looking at that advisor and me sitting there going like, I'm worried about the near future. And I'm getting a different reaction from my employees. There's like kind of this, like two opinions about something. The employees are like, saying, oh man, times, times are tough and, and things cost a lot. And the employers are going like, and by the way, employment super low, right? So the powers with the employee. But now it looks like that might be shifting very quickly. And so should an employer act right now and Give everyone raises and pay and all these things when they have no idea what the near future is for them in terms of economical disaster. That's my drunk question to you. Does that make sense? [54:15] Courtenay Shipley: Is it a question? [54:16] Chad: Not really, but. But you can riff off of that, Brad. I'm still all right. [54:22] Justin: Nobody in the chat bar knows what's going on right now. [54:24] Chad: Really. [54:26] Justin: I'm so lost. Tahoe on a roll. No idea. [54:30] Chad: Should employers deal with inflation right now and give. [54:34] Courtenay Shipley: No, the time to deal with this was before now. Like everybody was complaining about this, you know, last summer when it was 9% even that. I think that that's one of the things that, you know, goes into the whole conversation about, like Julie said, like, how does the company make money? I think it's really, I mean, I, I'm a proponent for semi transparent books or at least having the, the company know exact. Well, not exactly where you are maybe, but enough information about how things. [55:03] Chad: Keeping them informed. [55:05] Courtenay Shipley: Yeah, I mean, I know that some companies will like Motley Fool, I think is one of them. They'll have the, the quarterly, quarterly meeting where they tell everybody what's going on from top to bottom. I know Whole Foods puts out a lot of information as well. I don't know if you have to go that far with it. But I think it's very important for employees to understand like what's going on from a financial perspective of the company. The second part is. [55:30] Chad: Great answer. [55:32] Courtenay Shipley: Okay, thanks. [55:33] Chad: Keep going. [55:34] Courtenay Shipley: The second part of it comes back to, you know, when do you deal with raises and how do you, how do you reward people? What. When do they expect a cost of living increase versus when do they expect a merit increase? That goes back to that compensation strategy and kind of how you're doing things, how you're designing things there. And then maybe one other thing is take a look at investor sentiment right now. Like, it's some of the lowest that we've had since, since 2008. Like it's barely above there. So everybody feels bad. And I think if you just tell people like, hey, things are not getting any better for right this minute, inflation could get better. Here are the things that have improved. [56:16] Chad: Looks like it is, right? Yeah. [56:17] Courtenay Shipley: Cars mainly. Anything with a semiconductor chip in it. Even the gas prices have figured things out. You know, we, but there's a lot of uncertainty right now. And that goes for the company as well. It can't be handing out, you know, double digit raises and then be in a position where we're, we're laying people off in six Months. And I think people will buy that because they feel so terrible about everything right now. [56:43] Chad: That was so great. So, so well answered. Like, yeah, she's saying, you have a conversation with them, and you say, look, we understand that prices have gone up and that times are tougher for you, but we don't want to make decisions right now and fill that void for you and then have to fire, you know, 25 of our staff in six months when the economy goes in some crazy direction. And by the way, we experience a lot of these layoffs are because of the reverse. Right? Because when interest rates were so low and money was so free, all these big companies just hired, hired, hired, hired. Pay, pay, pay, pay. We've seen this with you. [57:23] Courtenay Shipley: Is it across the board, though? Isn't it mostly in the tech sector? [57:26] Chad: It is. It's heavily. [57:28] Courtenay Shipley: And bought a lot of talent for God knows why. [57:31] Chad: It's heavily in the tech sector. But would you call. Let's bring this close to home now. Would you. Would you call. Guideline the tech sector and human interest, the tech sector and these disruptors in our industry, because they also have been given. Jim, they've been given tons of money in that period. And higher, higher, higher, higher. And we might see some different headlines from them in the coming months. So. So it's not just Google and Facebook and, you know, the nasdaq. It's. It's. It's going other places, and they know the future. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right, you're right. [58:08] Courtenay Shipley: You're. Wow. Did that count? [58:13] Chad: This is how it used to be for me. [58:16] Courtenay Shipley: Like, I'm willing to take one right now. [58:18] Chad: Oh, my God. [58:19] Courtenay Shipley: Can you tell me what that stands for? [58:20] Chad: Can anyone. Can anyone? And no way. I don't know that one. I'm actually ashamed to say I have no idea what that one is. Okay, good, good. I. I thought that was really cool. [58:34] Justin: Association of Security Dealers. Automated Quotations. [58:38] Chad: Yeah, That's a lame name, by the way. I like Secure better than that. I'll drink for that, because I was referring to Secure. One point. That's two. Okay, chat bar champion tonight, Courtney, we're gonna go to you first. You're gonna pick someone in the chat bar that just floated your boat. You thought they were cool, you thought they were witty, you thought they did a great job, whatever the case may be. And you vote them, and they might get toilet paper and laxative sent to their home next week. [59:09] Courtenay Shipley: Michael SOA actually, like, watched my thing, and he said nice things occasionally about it. He seems to know what's going on. [59:17] Chad: Why did Hacker just tell me? [59:19] Justin: Because he's just trying to get that. That one little liner in there that we pay attention to. [59:23] Chad: What? Okay. Oh, I get it. [59:25] Justin: It's a good strategy. [59:26] Chad: I like that strategy. Wow. You bring it on hard in the end, right? Wow. I'm starting to understand chat bar strategy now. Like, save your good towards the end. Okay. I like that. Sour, Michael. Sour. Good. I don't think he's won before, so that would be a great win for him. [59:46] Justin: He's won once. [59:47] Chad: Oh, Sal, let us know. Have you won before? [59:49] Courtenay Shipley: Oh, have you already won? Maybe that disqualifies. [59:51] Justin: No, it's fine. We have multiple. [59:54] Chad: This drunken brain retains a lot of Justin. [59:57] Justin: Or we've just done. We've done so many shows, I don't remember. [1:00:02] Chad: All right, just since it's your time to. [1:00:05] Justin: This is tough, man. There's three that stuck out, but I gotta go with three piece. [1:00:09] Courtenay Shipley: Do it. [1:00:10] Chad: Okay, okay. Three piece. [1:00:13] Courtenay Shipley: Who's three piece, by the way? [1:00:15] Chad: Tom Condren. [1:00:16] Justin: Oh, always very, you know, three piece. [1:00:19] Chad: He wears a three piece dude everywhere he goes foreign. I'm gonna go with Kush for his pornography statements early on, because how did I miss those? What I like. I like. I like those. Not pornography. I don't like horny. I just like his irreverent statements. Love Kush. Yeah, Sue, I love Kush too. Wait, I don't know what's happening here. Jesus, Courtney. So, you know, we've had. We've had hundreds of guests on the show. Courtney's the only person that's made me feel intimidated. [1:01:00] Justin: Like, I have taken toe to toe tonight. [1:01:03] Chad: It's weird. I've taken Press and Rutledge and told him to off and sit the down and shut up and. And like, Fred Reese. Well, maybe not Frederic. Okay, so we'll put Fred best friend. But, like, all kinds of people get on the show, and I don't give a flying. And now Courtney turn on. I honestly feel like, oh, my God, is she. I'm worried about her. Like, she's got a little control thing over me going on right now. It's weird. Weird. See what she just said? How does she respond to that? She goes, that's a new problem. Power move. Like a. Made me feel even worse about it. All right, so, Brandon, delicioso. Here's what we're gonna do. [1:01:48] Justin: Well, who'd you go with, J.D. [1:01:50] Chad: i went with Kush. So we got Kush. We got Sour. Am I saying that right, Michael? Sorry. And could you go, Justin. [1:01:59] Justin: Three piece. [1:02:00] Chad: Three piece. I want them to each finish this sentence in the chat bar and Brandon will pick the winner. All right. My favorite dinosaur is because this. You know what's your favorite dinosaur? [1:02:18] Justin: And yeah. Or whatever that's called. [1:02:21] Chad: You take your time. You don't have to like. You don't have to be like right this second. It's all good. No one's going anywhere. We're just hanging out. [1:02:27] Courtenay Shipley: Lame. That's not lame. Dinosaurs are awesome. [1:02:32] Justin: Better. I love that. [1:02:33] Chad: Sampo. We got to look for the chat for the chat bar nominees. [1:02:40] Justin: So three piece already said pterodactyl because it flies. [1:02:44] Chad: Okay. Okay. This morning. Oh, that's a no brainer. Okay, who's the other one? Wait, did we get everybody? [1:03:00] Justin: No, we're waiting for Kush. [1:03:02] Chad: Kush could pull this off. Kush could do a buzzer beater right here. [1:03:06] Justin: He's not in here. He's not in. [1:03:08] Chad: Oh, he's gone. All right, that's Rhinonosasaurus. [1:03:13] Courtenay Shipley: That's not a real dinosaur. [1:03:14] Chad: Way to go sour. Rhinonosasaurus. Because it's horny. Love it. You win. Oh, wait, Brandon's. But yeah, he chose that. I'm hammered. Okay, well done. [1:03:24] Courtenay Shipley: Disappointed. [1:03:31] Justin: Mike, is it sour or soa. [1:03:34] Chad: That was so up. [1:03:36] Justin: I need to know this private. [1:03:37] Chad: Message me your mailing address. [1:03:40] Justin: So sewing. [1:03:42] Chad: So message me your mailing address and where you will be next Thursday around 4:30 Pacific because we will be sending you your prizes and gifts. No, it may not be meat. Oh, Shannon. We still need to send Shannon her meats, by the way. Shannon. Esther's. We owe you some meat while you're in Cabo. I had pounds of it from a local barbecue. Okay. Courtney, thank you so much for joining us. You intimidating you. Justin, thanks for. For being here again. I love you, Silent J. And I love your shiny little head right now. Look at the shine on that thing. [1:04:27] Justin: It is. Yeah. [1:04:29] Chad: And you out there in the audience [1:04:30] Courtenay Shipley: got us all together. [1:04:31] Justin: Yeah. [1:04:32] Chad: 401k every time. Fast people. If it was a few days ago and it was Valentine's Day, right now, if we could go on a time machine, I would tell you that you're my valentine for Your love for 401k and your. Your, your love for coming here to retire hawks on Thursday nights. I love you so much. I want to buy you a box of candy, some roses, get some champagne, take you to a really dirty hotel and. No, never mind. I love you guys. I love you. All right, it's been another episode of Retire Hawks. Sweet. Let's wrap it with some music, and let's let Courtney get the fire.