Record-Keeper Economics & the Coverage Gap

[0:00] Justin: Alcoholic care package, for lack of better terms. But, like, all their snacks and, like, people who had tickets for 150 bucks spread of, like, pimento sandwiches and the whole nine. [0:13] Chad: Craig was asking if anyone ever went to the Masters. [0:16] Mark: Greg? I get a phone call every year from this woman offering me a townhouse on the course for me and my corporate team, But I just haven't done it yet. Because it's like $1 million or something like that. [0:31] Chad: I'm like, I think you misinterpreted me [0:32] Mark: for an actual large corporation. I'm just a. [0:36] Chad: Every year. All right, here we go. Starting the show. Pay attention. [0:43] Mark: I got something for you. [0:49] Chad: Hey. [0:51] Speaker D: Are you a retirement plan advisor? I got a secret I need to share with you. It's really, really important that you pay attention to me. If you hear about PEPs Pooled Employer Plans, you need to know that aliens are behind it. [1:13] Mark: Okay? [1:13] Speaker D: They're trying to control your mind. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Let me show you. I've been working on something here. So it all started when the spaceship landed back in 1967. But John Sullivan was there, and he hasn't aged one bit. So it's 2020 now. I don't know how many years that is. My math isn't good, but that's. That's freaky, man. And then there was the regs themselves, which are really just a secret alien message about mind control. That's what they want. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the KGB, UFOs, they're all behind PEPs. [2:01] Chad: They're all behind PEPs. [2:03] Speaker D: And then there was the grassy knoll, November 22, 1963. Well, the grassy knoll has nothing to do with this. Never mind. So you need to watch out. They're going to control your minds. They're going to tell you it's about lower fees. They're going to tell you it's about getting rid of your fiduciary responsibility. And the biggest hoax of all. [2:30] Chad: They're going to tell you it's about [2:31] Speaker D: the retirement plan gap. [2:34] Chad: That's not true. [2:36] Mark: They want your millions of dollars. [2:38] Speaker D: The aliens do. [2:40] Chad: Watch out. I gotta go. I gotta go. [2:57] Speaker E: Wow. [3:02] Pete: Hey, [3:06] Chad: I don't know who that guy was, but that's kind of. [3:09] Justin: I don't know where you filmed that. [3:12] Chad: Oh, that's a video. It's been going around the Dark Web. I don't know, I just thought it was something valuable to share with the guests. [3:19] Mark: The guy's a little weird. His name is weird. [3:22] Justin: His name is DJ, not J.D. [3:25] Chad: i don't know, but a couple of things he's saying. [3:27] Mark: I think he kind of makes some sense. And the guy's so fucking handsome. How can you not be into what he's talking about? [3:32] Speaker E: So, you know, it's hard to see all the redness in the. In the video, in the messed up light, but he did look very handsome. [3:41] Justin: Reminded me of the Blair Witch Project for sure. [3:45] Chad: I saw someone say, what's up with Strange Brew? So good. I don't know that you know that. [3:49] Mark: That accent was a little. [3:50] Chad: Oh, I forgot. [3:51] Mark: Mark's too young to know what Strange Brew is. We've already discussed this on the show. [3:56] Justin: Is that a new micro beer I should know about? [3:58] Pete: No. [3:59] Chad: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Retireholics. [4:02] Mark: We are so glad that you have joined us. Sorry about that little conspiracy theory, but by the way, I have heard that aliens do not like alcohol. And that might explain John Sullivan's Heineken zero point zeros. I'm thinking he's. [4:22] Speaker E: Your red strings are really attaching on that wall now. [4:25] Mark: Yeah, they connect the dots. [4:27] Chad: We got a special guest right now. We got a special guest right now. He's thinking, or when that video is playing, he's like, what have I gotten myself into? What am I? [4:37] Mark: Cause this is a professional and established man. The CEO of Aspire Financial Peds. [4:44] Chad: Welcome to the show, buddy. Thanks for showing up. [4:47] Pete: Thank you. Really excited to be here. [4:51] Chad: He's lying. Already gets here and he's already full of it. Before every show, we gotta do a little bit of housekeeping. Housekeeping. Housekeeping. [5:04] Pete: No, thank you. Sleeping. [5:06] Chad: No, thank you. Sleeping. Make sure you are in gallery view. That's the best way to do this. But you're all vets. You've been here before. You know how to do that. Yeah, we're gonna have a chat bar champion. [5:18] Mark: Of course we're gonna have a chat bar champion. So let's make it legit, man. [5:21] Chad: I got some PBRs here. I got some vodka on tap. We're gonna make this show a real ruckus. So I want the chat bar to be ruckusing it up with me. And when. [5:31] Mark: That's a word, Mark, why are you. Mark's always judging me. [5:35] Chad: We also need to have a word of the episode. We're going to have two. I'm dropping it on Brandon for the first time after reading Pete's dissertation. I'm going to go with employee and participant. And if you say employee or participant, you must drink from your nasty drinker. [5:54] Mark: I've been told if you like it, then maybe it's not nasty. But, you know, the tough stuff, the hard stuff. [6:00] Chad: I've got mine mixed with a little [6:01] Speaker E: cranberry, but I actually found a shot glass tonight. [6:06] Chad: Let's dive right in to the show topic number one. And I'm excited to have someone who for two decades at least, has been running a record keeping shop. And I think more important than that, started running a shop when things were [6:26] Mark: a little different back in the late 90s, early 2000s. If I think back to those times, record keeping was dominated by mutual fund families and insurance companies. [6:39] Chad: And if you think to the late [6:41] Mark: 90s, there's probably a ton of proprietary investments going on. We know for sure as you go into the early 2000s, even if the menus of funds started to open up, these were funds that had revenue sharing in them. There was pay to play stuff going on. Like, it was kind of a treacherous [7:03] Chad: lack of transparency world. So I think 2002 was the date. [7:08] Mark: I've read something on the website where Aspire was kind of written up on a tablecloth at a restaurant. Is that true? He's nodding his head yes. [7:17] Chad: All right, let me ask you, Pete, when you're on that, when you're writing on that tablecloth and you're prepping to [7:24] Mark: start this company with a few other people, I believe, help us understand that. [7:28] Chad: But were you looking to mix it up and attack an industry that you thought was wrong, or what was the [7:37] Mark: inspiration to start Aspire? And I always named something different then. [7:42] Chad: But. [7:43] Pete: So first of all, you picked two brutal words. I'm probably going to be hammered. And I definitely didn't grab enough of another drink. But yeah, it was interesting. I was out. So just to give you a little background, my father, and I hate to use the term failed entrepreneur, but unfortunately went bankrupt. And I said that I would never be an entrepreneur. I saw everything had taken away from us. This was like when I was in college. So they took house, car, all that stuff. And I was selling the investing software up in New York City and Mike Gottfried was with a guy I work with. And Mike and I were out. And I gotta be careful. I don't wanna pick on TPAs. Cause there's a lot of great tpas out there. But we were selling this record keeping software to tpas and we just happened to hit four TPAs in two days. And a couple of them, we weren't the sharpest tools in the shed. And Mike looks at me, he's like, dude, we can do this. We gotta start Our own business because they've got boats and cars and houses on the water. And I said, mike, there's no way I want to start my own company. And I said, all right, here's the deal. If we find a source of revenue, I'll do it so that we're not, like, totally jumping off a cliff. And then that's when. [8:56] Chad: Source of revenue, as in like an [8:57] Mark: investor of some kind? [8:58] Pete: No, like a client. So we're not just, like, hoping somebody will come to us. So we're. Oh, yeah. So this is where the restaurant and the tablecloth came from. We're in San Francisco at a conference, and one of the investment clients calls me up and says, hey, I got this deal that I want to talk to you about. I need your help. So we go to this nice, swanky restaurant in San Francisco. Not just a tablecloth, but a white linen tablecloth. And we're sitting down with James. Mike and I are sitting with James, and he explains this broker dealer that wants a private label 401k offering. And Mike looks at me across the table and just starts going like this. [9:42] Mark: Like, we can do that. [9:43] Pete: What we're waiting for, this is our revenue stream. Then we told James what we were thinking of doing, and James is like, well, I want to participate in that, too. So then we got the pen from the waiter and start drawing the first. Really, it was like the first ASP application service provider in the industry, which is basically where you have all the technology in the cloud. Our industry was perfect for it, as opposed to having everything installed on the local server or laptop. And so that's what got things going. And then from there, we started the company in 2002, got to about 20 plans. We're like, man, this thing is. We're not going to make it. And lo and behold, a broker dealer out of Dallas, Texas, was having trouble with. Do you remember a company called Gold K way back in the day? [10:32] Chad: Yeah, yeah, I do, I do, I do. [10:34] Pete: They're having issues with them, and they wanted me to come out to Dallas and do a demo. And I don't want to monopolize the whole 60 minutes. Like, I could tell you some funny stories, but I flew out there like the movie Gung Ho. I felt like if I didn't. [10:47] Chad: When you do a demo, Pete, do you bring the tablecloth? [10:50] Mark: Or does that. You've evolved since then? [10:55] Pete: I'm not sure if we had something, but. So, yeah, I went out to Dallas, did a demo, and they gave us 350 plans. So we went from 20 to 370 plans. And it kind of got us over the hump. And that's before we got on. We were talking about bundled versus unbundled. We were unbundled, but then they said, well, if you want this business, you have to provide both. So we went out and hired a gal that was a TPA just so that we could offer that service. From there, it's just been, you know, bootstrap and the whole way. I mean, my wife hates you. [11:28] Chad: Didn't. You didn't give me the. I love to hear that history. [11:31] Mark: That was cool. You didn't give me the answer that I was trying to plant in your brain, though, which is, did you see [11:37] Chad: these, like, insurance companies sharing revenue and putting funds on their platform as, like, the evil Empire or the. What is the. What do they say in Star Wars? [11:50] Pete: You know, I learned about. It's funny you said 19 or 2002. That's. I learned about. I learned about Rev. Share. Oh, no, actually, it was 1992. Tim Friday from Mid Atlantic came and presented to us down in Tampa. But it was really after we got started, JD That I realized how, like, sleazy parts of our industry were. That's when we kind of created this clean fuel alternative before that was even a term. And we always were transparent from day one. We always believed in transparency. The other thing we did that was unique was a capitated participant rate, which I. [12:29] Chad: There we go. [12:29] Mark: There we go. There we go. [12:33] Chad: I was about to plant one. I was going to plant a trap. But Chad, when I first ran into [12:40] Mark: Aspire, they were the. I'll let him drink his hard alcohol. But they were, to me, were the first product I saw that was not a mutual fund company, not an insurance company offering at the time a flat fee to do record keeping. You know, that doesn't grow as the assets grow, and had true open architecture, meaning you could just pick any fund you wanted. [13:04] Chad: And I don't know how long ago [13:06] Mark: that was, if it was 10 years ago, 12 years ago, when I was first getting, you know, seeing it. But I was blown away because you didn't have a lot of things like that. [13:15] Speaker E: What's interesting to me, and hearing Peter say that is that initially I would have thought, as you did, JD or at least as you set up the question, that this was about driving down costs and revenue sharing and too much money being moved back and forth in an industry where TPAs had yachts and sat on beach homes like you described earlier. That doesn't exist now, but clearly it wasn't you looked and said, operationally and perhaps even functionality wise, this business is weak and we can be better. That's really interesting for me to hear because I would have thought the exact opposite. Coming out with an open architecture flat [13:53] Chad: fee structured, or that tablecloth had a lot of spilled red wine on it. [13:58] Mark: And they were just hammered. [13:59] Speaker E: They got away with all their money was to be made. [14:03] Chad: Can I ask you, Pete, did you ever, as you're creating this, how do [14:08] Mark: you call it, the green energy thing, the fuel, what do you say? [14:11] Pete: California Clean fuel alternative. [14:13] Chad: Clean fuel alternative. [14:14] Mark: I like it. [14:15] Chad: Did you ever have moments, you or [14:17] Mark: the people that you were working with where you felt like, geez, man, there's [14:21] Chad: a lot of revenue to be made with these funds or these share classes or these fixed options. Was that ever a. Did that ever want you to go over to the dark side? [14:32] Pete: Absolutely. Constantly had that dangled in front of us. And I would even tell you that when we took in private equity, one of the partners who was also part of Financial Engines, he's like, guys, we gotta be charging an asset based fee. And we reluctantly introduced it for about three months and got our teeth kicked in on the 401k side and we called it revenue share administration fee. Which. [15:00] Chad: When was this? [15:01] Pete: Yeah, like 2012. [15:05] Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I know. Hey, I was cool with that. I was like, all right. These guys, it was like single digit basis points you guys were trying to get your hands on. [15:14] Pete: Yeah. But we retrenched pretty quickly because we tended to attract the purists of the, you know, people that are using vanguard and dimensional. And all sudden this basis point fee shows up for revenue share administration when there's no revenue share in the funds that they use. So yeah, they told us how they felt about it and we changed course or course corrected, I guess you could say. [15:40] Chad: We can move. [15:41] Mark: Yeah, go ahead, Chad. [15:42] Speaker E: I had a question. It's something that I've never really been able to mentally answer and I think this will lead into other topics later. But for folks like Aspire who had no asset game play in the past, and there are many others now that are competing against you in that same space, is there an upside for plan size and asset growth? Is there a way in which you guys are planning to create target date funds or proprietary, like, what's the next step for this flat fee business that has been flat and has no play in the asset growth? There's gotta be something behind the scenes [16:21] Pete: on the investment side. There's money market opportunities, stable value opportunities, where you can create something and get a small asset fee by offering that, I would tell you it's absolutely a game of scale, which is no surprise to anybody on this webinar. More and more and more participants. I'll tell you the real. All right, so. [16:51] Chad: That's you. That's you, Pete. Pete, you drink and I'm going to throw another question at you based on [16:57] Pete: Chad's not answering anyone's questions. [17:01] Chad: How do you feel? [17:03] Mark: So you're saying it's about scale, which to me you're answering Chad's question by saying we're just going to keep doing what we're doing, but you know, keep growing. [17:12] Chad: How do you feel about the current [17:13] Mark: group of self proclaimed kind of 401k disruptors? [17:18] Chad: The guidelines, the human interests shit. I'll even throw Aaron in there. The vest wells. These companies are getting huge VC backed capital and are offering what I would argue to be is very cheap, flat fee. So I don't see a future for them. But I'm smart enough now where I've learned that they're not in it just to do what you just answered, Pete. They're not in it just to scale their cheap fees and grow to this massive record keeper. They're in it for other reasons. How aware are you of those other reasons? Can you talk to some of those? And how do you feel about these new. These new 2.0 versions of disruptors? [18:00] Pete: So that's where I was going before you made me drink again. [18:03] Chad: Perfect. [18:04] Pete: Cut me off. It's the data. [18:08] Chad: I knew it. I knew it. It's the fucking data. [18:11] Speaker E: Yeah. [18:12] Pete: If you own the participant data, [18:18] Speaker E: You're gonna store that one. [18:20] Chad: No, continue your thought. Leave it to the side. We'll make sure you drink it. Keep going. [18:28] Pete: Those two words. I just think there's an opportunity and it doesn't even have to be in the retirement space. You think about shelf space and this is totally, completely different discussion, but it's germane to what we're talking about here in Florida. There was a company before Walgreens called Eckerd's and they. There was a cigar manufacturer that started selling hydrogen peroxide on their shelves because [18:51] Speaker E: they could get shelf space. [18:53] Pete: And it's the same thing with. [18:54] Mark: Great analogy. [18:55] Chad: Yeah. [18:56] Pete: There's so many buyers for. Oh Jesus. [19:01] Chad: That's a check swing. You only owe one. [19:04] Mark: That was check, right? [19:05] Chad: Yeah. [19:05] Mark: Check swing. Check swing. [19:10] Chad: That's. [19:10] Mark: That's phenomenal that you're. So you're telling me it's participant data. That's what I thought. That's what I knew. [19:17] Speaker E: Did you answer, jd? [19:19] Mark: Oh shoot, [19:22] Speaker E: somebody's joining the club. [19:24] Chad: I'm gonna leave the cranberry over there. My question is, did you answer Chad? Are you guys looking to shift towards using participant data to generate revenue? [19:41] Mark: That's my question. [19:44] Pete: Say it one more time. [19:47] Chad: Are you going to shift to that new model where you're going to use the people in the plans data to your advantage to make some money? [19:59] Pete: Our first, our first goal would be to better support the advisors and TPAs that we work with. [20:06] Chad: Spoken like a CEO. [20:07] Mark: Now answer the question. [20:08] Pete: As far as that data, picture a stick figure, the data surrounding. [20:14] Chad: Yes. [20:14] Pete: Good. Yeah. So that, that, that, that would be the first goal. We haven't thought that far ahead, quite honestly. I want to make it sound, and [20:24] Speaker E: you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but PCs as an entity after the acquisition last year does have some asset play in their pricing. [20:32] Pete: Yes, that would be actually two Advisor Trust. What you're seeing a lot of record keepers do now is have the trust company component. Yeah. The matrix MATC Schwab is a sub custodian and so the, you know, in our case, Advisor Trust takes on the, the trustee component. [20:57] Chad: I want to get to a little [20:59] Mark: quick game, but before we do that, can I ask you. [21:03] Chad: The PCs acquisition and Aspire was all very visible. We're all very aware of it. I would think it was really cool because it brought you all to a new level in terms of size. But I still feel like Aspire still exists and PCs still exists separately. Is that the long term goal or [21:24] Mark: what's going on there? [21:25] Pete: It is and I wouldn't say it was what we realized. Aspire's got good brand cache in the non ERISA markets. 403B for instance. Nobody knows who PCs is in the K12 space. [21:40] Mark: Okay. [21:41] Pete: So we didn't want to get rid of Aspire and Now we're into HSAs and simple IRAs and SEP IRAs. And so we decided to preserve the Aspire brand. And we've got two record keeping systems too. So what we're doing there is driving all the data to a central repository so we can serve it up from one place. We deal with a multitude of third party data aggregators like RPAG and Allbridge. [22:10] Mark: You're not supposed to call them RPAG anymore. [22:13] Speaker E: They get upset with that. [22:14] Chad: Vince doesn't like that. [22:15] Mark: Pete, we're going to tell on you, all right? [22:19] Chad: No, no, no. I did someone, someone very cool in [22:23] Mark: my life did tell me you guys are Big in the non ERISA 403B space. So, okay, you keep the brand. We're never going to see this conglomerate of PCs aspire. At least from a branding standpoint. You'll stay separate, right? [22:37] Pete: Yeah. And yeah, that was Kate, right? I think I saw that post too. [22:40] Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [22:41] Pete: And yeah, we're in like 6,000 school districts, so you think about all the things you talked about, what we did before. Well, imagine taking that to K12, where the common investment is a group annuity with 3% expense. [22:56] Speaker E: 3%. [22:57] Pete: Not 3 basis points. 3%. So here we come, rolling in open arc, Vanguard dimensional, you know, getting institutional share class for under 10 basis points. Unheard of. And you really got me thinking about my words before I say them now. [23:14] Chad: No, no, no. You got to speak freely. Speak freely. [23:16] Speaker E: Wait to your next zoom meeting when you start doing that too. You're speaking to a group of folks and you start questioning whether or not to say participant. [23:22] Pete: I know. [23:25] Mark: There you go. [23:26] Speaker E: I need it a little bit. [23:28] Speaker G: What is the other word, by the way? [23:29] Speaker E: I forgot. [23:30] Speaker G: I'm not trying to be anybody. [23:32] Chad: It's the. It's ee. [23:34] Pete: Yeah. [23:37] Justin: Any form of it counts. So don't. Watch yourself. [23:40] Speaker E: Watch yourself. [23:42] Chad: I was gonna spread these out, but let's just jump straight to some fun and games. [23:46] Mark: We've talked a lot of shop here. We're halfway into this sucker. [23:51] Chad: Let's spin the wheel of ice. And just to remind everyone, this Wheel of Ice is a real deal now. It's not just gonna land on Mark every time. So I've got my Smirnoff. Pete, you don't have to worry about this. You're free, you're off the. Off the chain here. But let's spin this wheel and let's see who's gonna lose. [24:18] Mark: Nervous? [24:25] Speaker E: We're gonna last three months. [24:26] Chad: Oh, my God. [24:27] Speaker E: I knew it was Justin again. [24:29] Chad: How many since we changed the wheel? How many times has Justin got it? [24:36] Speaker G: Every time. [24:37] Speaker E: Three times in our live show. [24:39] Justin: Chad won. [24:40] Speaker E: I was live show. [24:41] Speaker G: No, but remember, I had the tall one too. [24:44] Justin: Yeah. [24:46] Chad: To let everyone know, there is a panel on there, a little slice that says everyone and so where we all drink. And I'm looking forward to the day [24:54] Mark: that that one happens. [24:56] Chad: Let's keep the fun going, Mark. We play a game. Tell Pete what the game's called and explain the game. [25:01] Justin: There's not much to explain, Pete. It's simply called the lame game. [25:13] Mark: But it's so not. [25:14] Justin: The rules are simple. I'm just going to ask you some questions. And, Pete, I'll always come to you [25:20] Pete: first for your answer. [25:21] Justin: And it's very, very, very quick answer back. It's. You're going to just tell me, is it lame or are you game? That. Does that make sense? [25:30] Pete: I'll give it a try. Okay. [25:33] Justin: Just like, I tried to read your dissertation. I made it through, like, three sentences, and then I literally. [25:38] Pete: Did you get to the Dilbert cartoon? [25:41] Chad: Yes. [25:42] Justin: If I would have gotten there, you would have known for sure. [25:45] Chad: I got to the part where you got their approval to use their cartoon. Okay, go ahead, Mark. [25:49] Pete: Sorry. [25:50] Justin: All right, my first question is. Now that we've crossed into November, I think these things are starting to happen at a rapid pace. [25:58] Speaker E: And I'm. [25:59] Justin: I get concerned when I see things so early, but decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving is even here. Is it lame or are you game? Pete, I'll start with you. [26:12] Pete: I'm both. It's lame, but I did it in our summer house. Sorry, he's already on. [26:21] Justin: At least. At least you're honest. I'll give you that much. Okay, Chad, [26:29] Speaker E: I'm going to go lame. That's a tough one for me, though, [26:33] Justin: JD [26:36] Chad: because there really isn't a. [26:37] Mark: Is there a Thanksgiving decoration scheme? [26:40] Chad: Is that like. [26:40] Speaker E: Like, it's all bro fall? [26:42] Chad: You put leaves on your kitchen island or something? [26:45] Justin: Pumpkin spice? [26:47] Chad: Yeah. No, you don't put up your. [26:49] Mark: You don't put up your Christmas shit until after Thanksgiving. [26:51] Speaker E: Lame, Justin. [26:53] Justin: Same thing. [26:54] Speaker G: We can have Thanksgiving. [26:56] Justin: All right, next question. Daylight savings time. Pete, is it lame or are you game? [27:06] Pete: Lame, [27:08] Justin: Chad. [27:09] Pete: Lame. [27:10] Speaker E: I need more early morning golf hours, [27:14] Justin: but that helps right now, Justin. [27:17] Pete: Yeah, I know. [27:18] Chad: Yeah, it's earlier. [27:19] Speaker E: It's lighter earlier right now, Chad. [27:21] Chad: It gets. [27:23] Justin: Let's just move past that. [27:24] Speaker E: Remember that there is a time in which it flips. [27:28] Chad: Hey, smart with plan design. Regular life, not so much. [27:33] Speaker E: There is a time where we do spring forward, folks. [27:37] Speaker G: Lighter in the time of the year. [27:40] Speaker E: Game. [27:41] Justin: All right, J.D. [27:44] Mark: i'm in my garage right now, and it's lame. It's getting dark right now. [27:49] Chad: I'm not a fan. [27:51] Justin: All right, my next question comes in the form of a picture. I'm not even going to ask a question. And thank you, shout out to Will Hackler, who sent me a picture after our last episode when I asked the audience, hey, you got some ideas for my game that apparently JD Thinks sucks these days? Let's bring them in. Bring some. And so he went out on a limb here. [28:12] Chad: So obviously. [28:13] Justin: Pete, I can tell you play golf. You had Titleist hat On audience. Maybe some of you golf, maybe you don't, but if somebody was on a golf course like this. Hold on. [28:25] Pete: Oh, shit. [28:27] Mark: Oh, wow. [28:28] Speaker G: Yep. [28:29] Justin: See that? [28:30] Chad: Wait, is that Branded Titleist or is that his golf bag? Oh, no, I got it. I thought he had a Titleist, like motorcycle scooter. [28:38] Justin: So my question just becomes about that picture. Is that lame or Game Pete? [28:46] Pete: Good one, Mark. Still gonna go with lame. [28:49] Justin: Ooh, Them's his fighting words. [28:52] Chad: Ouch. [28:54] Speaker E: I'm game all the way. That looks like a blue. I could ride the golf course in that, too. Sign me up, J.D. [29:02] Mark: super game. Super game. [29:04] Chad: Golf needs new. [29:06] Mark: New shit like that. [29:07] Chad: I love that. [29:08] Justin: That's cool, Justin. [29:10] Speaker G: Game. Especially after rocking these guys this last week. [29:14] Justin: Yeah, you can't really tell [29:17] Pete: a cooler on it. Did it have a cooler? Because that's kind of. [29:21] Speaker E: I didn't notice a cooler. That's not really sure. [29:25] Justin: Yeah. [29:26] Speaker E: Hey, when we did the scooter surfboards this past week, there was a cup holder on it that Mark taught me. Has an over the top latch to hold your beer in place, which was cocktail, but. [29:38] Justin: All right, last. Last question. Self promotion on LinkedIn. [29:44] Mark: Oh, Mark, you're so sweet. You're so sweet. [29:48] Chad: I send Mark text messages giving him examples. [29:51] Mark: He never uses any. [29:52] Justin: I'm trying to save my job. Folks who I would say, okay, they announce their awards, they announce the kudos to themselves. Blame her game Pete. [30:06] Chad: Unlike LinkedIn. [30:07] Pete: Yeah, I'm gonna go game. And the reason I'm gonna go game is you guys. There's a lot of. We have a phenomenal chief marketing officer and she puts a little. In fact, she might be watching right now. So I gotta make sure I say that. So, you know, your marketing team puts a lot of heat on you to self promote because at the same time you're promoting the company. [30:31] Justin: I get. [30:31] Chad: Well, so I would say we can [30:32] Justin: give us some specific examples, like if you win like Top Advisor award and then you post it yourself with no context or no nothing. [30:43] Chad: I don't know. [30:44] Pete: Yeah, yeah, that's lame, [30:48] Justin: Chad. [30:50] Speaker E: Lame as well. [30:52] Chad: Jd, I feel like. [30:54] Mark: I feel like if chad made like [30:56] Chad: top 40 TPA sales, whatever, he would [31:00] Mark: post it in a heartbeat. [31:02] Speaker E: No, no, jd. And I'd say, jd, post this shit. [31:06] Chad: Okay, well, that's good because that's exactly what I was gonna say. [31:12] Mark: I think that if you won something, [31:14] Chad: the better move would be get your company like Pete said, he did the reverse. But get your company to post it. [31:20] Mark: Get your buddies to post it. [31:21] Chad: But posting your own award is Just fucking silly greed. Unless you're Janice Stout and you made the COVID of a mag. You make the COVID of the mag. You self promote that stuff. [31:33] Speaker E: You make the COVID of the mag, you promote it. [31:36] Justin: Justin. [31:36] Pete: Yeah, baby. [31:37] Speaker G: Depending on the frequency and the award it is, I could be game. But if you're just throwing regular shit out there, that's random. [31:44] Speaker E: No. [31:46] Justin: Well, you know what they say. [31:48] Speaker E: We do now? [31:49] Chad: You know what they say? Pete, do you know what they say? [31:53] Pete: I have no idea what they say. [31:55] Chad: Yeah, me neither. Me neither. But I did send all of the boys a copy of your dissertation right before. It was about two hours before the show. And I said, hey, everyone, I need you to review this. I failed to let them know it was some 70 plus pages long, but why don't you set it up for us? Tell us about the dissertation that you did. What are we there? Brandon's got a little visual for everyone. [32:26] Pete: All right, so the dissertation I was telling these guys earlier, I got my Doctor of Business Administration, which is different from a PhD, and that it's scholarly research to solve real world problems. [32:39] Chad: Doing business as. [32:40] Mark: Doing business as. [32:42] Pete: Doing business as you. You're trapping me. You want me to talk about my dissertation? So I say that word like eight times. [32:50] Speaker E: Gotta find an alternative. [32:52] Mark: It's part of the topic, Pete. It's part of the topic. [32:55] Pete: I'm gonna navigate through this minefield without doing it. My dissertation was on how to drive higher retirement plan adoption with small employers being 50 employees or less, with the goal being to figure out how do we solve this coverage gap. And what I did was created two, what they call artifacts. And really what it was was a script followed by some education and then followed by another, I don't know, five, six, seven questions and then graded based on that individual's specific situation, which plan type would be best for them. This was all based on nudges. So it was either a 401k, simple IRA, payroll deduct IRA, or no plan at all. One of the key tenets of nudges is that you have to preserve freedom, so you can't take away the freedom of not choosing a plan. And so going through that was pretty fascinating. What I found was that it was. What I called it was an adaptive default nudge. Default nudge is like think of Austria where you get your driver's license and you're automatically an organ donor. That's a default. An adaptive default nudge takes into consideration your specific situation and modifies the nudge to your situation. And what I found was that everybody there was a small sample set because I did qualitative research, not quantitative. So my sample size was 10. But I did some pretty in depth interviews. What I found was that almost everybody selected the plan that was recommended to them. The other interesting thing that I found in my research was that there's a huge. And Brian Graff talks about this all the time. [34:42] Chad: Pete. [34:43] Pete: Pete. [34:43] Chad: Or I should say Dr. Pete. Can I clarify for the audience? You're in there talking to small business owners. Small business owners and probing them. [34:54] Mark: Not probing them. That's an alien thing to say. [34:57] Chad: Asking them questions and trying to figure out their decision making process and getting really deep in all that. [35:02] Mark: Again, a probe analogy. Deep. [35:04] Chad: Sorry, continue on. Dr. Pete. [35:06] Pete: Yeah, no, that's exactly what I did. I tried to find out what their biggest challenges were in running a small business. But one of the things I found, which probably won't surprise anybody that's listening to this right now, is that there's a huge information gap. I called it information asymmetry with small employers as it relates to retirement plans. And the reason for that is this is what I did find. Most employers get the preponderance of their information. See, I'm still using big words. You haven't hit me hard enough on the liquor. They get most of their information about retirement plans from financial advisors and in some cases TPAs. The problem with that is that financial advisors typically won't go downstream to a 10 life plan. Because why? [35:53] Mark: Money in it. There's no money in it. [35:55] Chad: Cash rules everything around me. [35:58] Pete: Exactly. And so nothing wrong with that. You know, they got to make a living too. And so my thought was that what if I could deliver that education via my artifact and trust me, it was down and dirty and quick. But educate the small business owner on what a simple is, what a. What a 401k is, what a payroll deduct IRA is to the extent that they could make some semblance of an educated decision on which plan made the most sense for them. And it was pretty. It was kind of. One thing I will tell you is that they're scared shitless of fiduciary liability. I mean that just like when you explain what that is, they're like, nah, I want no part of that. Maybe I didn't explain it, but. Or maybe I was. I don't know. But yeah, it was an interesting finding there too, which was ancillary discovery, I guess you could say. [36:54] Chad: So I think this is, I do [36:56] Mark: mean this from the heart. I think this is really cool. That you're able to go in kind of from a different perspective, if you will. [37:03] Chad: You know, I think Chad, Mark, Justin, myself, people attending today, we do our [37:10] Mark: own analysis of decision makers all the time, right? So if you're in a point of sale and you're trying to sell plans, you get a feel for why people do or don't. But for you to go into all these smaller plans that don't make decisions to have workplace retirement plans and actually [37:29] Chad: ask them questions in a comfortable non selling environment gives you a different vibe, right? [37:36] Mark: You get a different opinion from them. [37:37] Chad: But how would you respond to this? Because I've always been a little, I [37:42] Mark: guess, nonchalant about this. [37:43] Chad: Like, okay, there's these, what are the stats? [37:46] Mark: Like how many companies out there don't offer workplace retirement plans? Like 50 plus million or something, right? [37:54] Chad: And I think like, okay, well that's a, it's a little flower shop on the corner that's owned by this person. They got three employees and they're just trying to make ends meet and make payroll next fucking week. They don't have time to figure out what kind of retirement plan they're going [38:11] Mark: to offer their clients. [38:12] Chad: And I could go down the list with all kinds of analogies to that flower shop, but am I wrong? Is this a bigger problem and am I being an asshole? Because that person that works for that flower shop deserves a 401k plan. You think of all the people, I'd [38:28] Mark: be the one to say they do, [38:29] Chad: but I'm kind of sitting here saying they're not ready for it yet. [38:31] Pete: Dr. Pete, they're not, but that's the thing. So the mistake you're making is you're thinking myopically. 401K. There's other solutions out there like a payroll deduction, IRA. And the reason I'm saying that is because studies show people are 15 times more likely to save if it's through payroll deduction. So at least give them the opportunity to save for retirement. And then if the flower shop becomes four flower shops and now they can put in a 401k plan. But you know, you're right, it's only three people. But if it's million companies with three people, now you got a problem. [39:10] Chad: And Pete, you're right, I do myopically [39:12] Mark: think 401k all the time. [39:15] Chad: The term IRA never runs through my brain. [39:17] Mark: But go ahead, Chad. [39:19] Speaker E: It does for me though. JD and that's something that the guys talk about as well, which is what's the right type of plan for a Startup business or a business looking to add this feature. But my question for you Pete then would be what's the difference between a payroll deducted IRA and a 401k? Operationally you still have to make sure that you're doing things right. You're deducting what a participant tells you, dang it. Member tells you they'd like to withhold from payroll. There would be, no, not necessarily any company contributions that need to go in the plan. So from a 401 perspective, you have the same obligation, maybe a slightly higher cost, which we could, we could go into that. But operationally it sounds like in your dissertation the, the issue was we've got shit to do running our company and we don't want to spend our time running a benefit plan. And so a payroll deducted IRA or a 401k or a simple, which has a match, all of them are going to create that obligation. And so I feel like, and hear me out one second, I feel like the payroll deducted IRA has very little services support. They're on their own. At least in the 401k space. They get a bundled provider, a TPA, an advisor, perhaps someone, someone in there that's going to take some accountability to help make sure that they're doing things correctly. And that's where I see a benefit in the corporate retirement plan space versus a payroll deducted ira. [40:50] Pete: No question. No, absolutely. It's just you're going to run into, and that's a great example that the three person flower shop. You're just looking for the ability for a stick figure to say, I can't [41:10] Chad: believe his word for not stick figure, but I love it. [41:15] Pete: Hold it up to save on a payroll deduction basis. And the other thing I would tell you is that a lot of the stuff that you just described is with technology, it is completely automated these days where a participant makes the contribution. [41:40] Mark: I'm surprised EE hasn't popped off more. But that's just me. [41:46] Justin: Doesn't roll off the tongue. [41:49] Pete: I'm a huge fan of the 401k. And if you want to get into plan design and really you talk to the employer and they want to set up a certain type of plan that has all these different things that they're trying to accomplish. You can't do that with a payroll deduction. Iraq, that is just lean and mean and is just simply designed to let somebody save on a payroll deduction basis. [42:16] Chad: That's it. [42:17] Mark: Dr. Pete, I'll tell you what's going to solve the retirement plan gap what's going to help all these companies without retirement plans because they can't afford it? [42:27] Pete: Peps. [42:28] Mark: It's the Pep, bro. The Pep has thrown on its red [42:31] Chad: cape and it's common to save all of these little businesses and their little no asset startups. Tell me, you must be excited about the pep. When does the Aspire PEP come out? [42:45] Mark: Or is it already out? Talk to me. [42:47] Chad: Tell me the truth. [42:49] Pete: All right, busted. We've got one in the works. But I would tell you, I'm not the biggest fan of the Pep either. [42:55] Chad: All right, Brandon, play the music. Let's end this fucking show. No, it's all good. Keep going, keep going. [43:04] Pete: They've been oversold. I think there's a lot of people out there that act like they're the be all, end all and they're not. One of the things that I found in my dissertation that was kind of fascinating that I wasn't even looking for. Because if you're thinking PEPs help small employers. What I found in doing my research is that small employers tend to be leaders, not followers. And there's a nudge they call social norms, which is where like, if we all got together in the bar and everybody said, that's red. You're thinking to yourself, that's blue. Eventually you're gonna say it's red because everybody else is saying it's red. Well, with these business owners, they're like, no, screw that. I want to do my own thing. I don't. The reason I'm telling you this, if you're gonna go out and sell a pet, you better not go sell it like where everybody else is doing it. So you should do it too. That is, you just ain't gonna. [43:52] Mark: Interesting. [43:53] Chad: I've spent a lot of time thinking about peps and I've never. [43:57] Mark: That never crossed my mind. [43:59] Justin: Your video was proof of that, jd. [44:01] Pete: My what? [44:02] Chad: That wasn't me. That was that conspiracy guy. [44:06] Pete: If you go to small business owners and say you should do this because everybody else is doing it, they're going to tell you to go flying a kite. [44:11] Chad: Here's what do you think about this, Pete? The conspiracy guy said it at the end. He said that the biggest hoax is [44:21] Mark: that they're here to save the retirement plan gap. And I've been talking to lots of PEP providers through different Zoom calls and [44:30] Chad: researching, and every time they show me their hands where they're not really interested in startup plans. They're interested in winning existing business with assets in it. So what the fuck? [44:47] Pete: We've had a Lot of people Express interest in PEPs and not one of them has been for a startup. It's always been to aggregate assets. [44:54] Chad: Every time that's a problem. That's a big problem to me. [44:58] Pete: You're just moving quarters around on the table at that point. You're not producing new quarters. [45:10] Speaker E: Chad, I hadn't thought deep enough about kind of what Pete was just saying there, which is we're moving quarters around the table, not creating new quarters. If we are trying to narrow this gap, they should be highly focused on the startup community. Highly focused on the startup community. But the truth is, you're right. Every person I've talked to that's looking to start a PEP is about asset aggregation. They're going to advisors and they're saying how if we want to start up, how many plans can you bring in? What's the asset level that you can bring in so we can price this thing accordingly? Let's get assets. Assets, assets. I've never heard a single one talk about creating a startup program specifically to narrow that gap. [45:50] Chad: It's just a new mousetrap to like [45:54] Mark: Pete said, to shift the quarters around. [45:57] Chad: Like it's just something that they feel like, oh, everyone's talking about it, it's in the headlines. [46:02] Mark: And then they're branding it with this low cost, which I've already told everyone at nauseam is really not true. And then they're branding it with fiduciary responsibility. And I'll try not to get on my soapbox here. I'll leave that to the tin foiled hat gentlemen. [46:16] Chad: But you can help your fiduciary responsibility with a 338 outside of a fucking [46:23] Mark: PEP and a 316 outside of a [46:25] Chad: fucking PEP and everything that are doing. There's nothing unique to it. Anyways, my bad. I'm sorry. There's nothing a motherfucking PEP can do that a regular 401k plan cannot. [46:37] Speaker E: Let's. Let's get JD off the PEP conversation for a second. [46:41] Chad: And they're not gonna. It's not gonna help the participants. [46:46] Pete: Have you ever used pep as the penalty word? [46:55] Chad: Pete, when you get a chance you're back at the office on Monday, go to www.pepssuck.org. [47:05] Mark: okay, good. [47:06] Chad: There's a lot of good people there doing the Lord's work. [47:09] Speaker E: Yes, John, I know you've got a couple other topics you want to cover and we're running late. I do have something very late I want to ask Pete. No, not yet. 12 minutes left. But in the micro space which is what your dissertation was about, like getting people to implement plans. What's next? Let's leave the Pepsi aside, but specifically from the advisor community perspective, are advisors going to have a space in the micro market or are we going to see robo advisors, PEPs, these things that essentially are trying to cut them out, are we going to see those take over? Because you said it earlier, there's not a whole lot of money in that space. So are we going to see folks dabble in that or is the industry going to change and it's all going to be automated in that, in that section. [47:58] Pete: I think a lot of it will be automated downstream. You could create. Because I thought about that. I'm always thinking about what's my next life look like? Do I want to be a financial advisor? And if I did, I would absolutely service the small micro market, you know, someday when I retire. But it would be something that you just. It's practically impossible to deliver a high touch model and make it scalable down market. You have to kind of robotize it, so to speak. [48:31] Speaker E: You have to create efficiency which is where using record keeping services to bridge some of those gaps, enrollment support, tech based, well, financial wellness tools and perhaps charging flat based costs as an advisor in that. [48:52] Pete: This is just an aside, but I got Crucified back in 2004, 2006. I was on the TD Ameritrade Advisory Board and we were one of the first ones to charge that per you know what fee. And man, I'm getting good at this now. J.D. stick figure, stick figure and change. The words guys are like telling me, hey, you're moving my cheese, man. But my point was if I do the same thing for somebody with a half a million dollar account balance that I do for a $50,000 account balance, why am I charging them 10 times as much if it's the same amount of work? [49:31] Chad: I wanted to ask you that. We're going to hit a little potpourri. That was one of my questions I'm [49:35] Mark: going to hit you with. You got potpourri. [49:39] Chad: But before we go there on this not being able to service the micro market, Call me an old school guy, [49:49] Mark: but I feel like right now the micro market gets serviced just fine. [49:55] Chad: So as a tpa, how many startup plans will the three of you guys sell in the course of the year? A lot. [50:02] Mark: Right. [50:04] Chad: And do you think the fees to those plans are reasonable or do you feel like the record keepers ripping them off, the advisors ripping them off? [50:12] Speaker E: No, it's a loss leader for those Record keepers, they're not making money. [50:16] Chad: But those options exist for these small employers. There are people there ready to help [50:21] Mark: and support them for a variety of reasons. [50:24] Chad: There are TPAs there doing the work. There are record keepers that have razor thin profit margins that have come to the table with solutions. So I just not believing the hype, to be honest with you. And by the way, when you come in and your guideline and you come in in your human interest and your betterment and I look at your pricing and what you're offering and I compare that to the old school model that exists today, I really don't see that big of a difference between the two. And I'm a small business owner myself, [50:56] Mark: so I think I have a right to this opinion. [50:58] Chad: You know, I've got 25 employees. I don't mind spending three grand extra in a year on something that's going to benefit my employees if it's the right thing to do. And so I just don't think that the problem is what guideline and everyone's trying to fix. I think the problem is more your dissertation, Pete. And last, what guideline? [51:24] Mark: Things you're going to fucking do. [51:27] Speaker E: Yeah. Which I didn't see you going there, J.D. i was going to completely disagree. I think the micro space is underserviced. I think that the costs are low, that the margins are incredibly thin, that most of the record keepers TPAs advisors are not making money on supporting those businesses unless you're selling ancillary services like we talked about with the data. But I think in that sense space it is under serviced big time. And Pete's dissertation shows it. If people were to spend the time consulting with those small businesses up front, they would have fucking plans. People need to understand why they need them, what the benefits are plans right [52:05] Pete: now if, if they felt that they were being serviced appropriately, you wouldn't. California, Illinois, Oregon, on and on. [52:13] Speaker G: Yep, I agree with you guys without a doubt. But I mean Chad, how do you. I think the biggest problem is it's not a tra. Obviously we all know it's not attracted to advisors. So how do you overcome that and get them to start paying attention to that? [52:27] Mark: Oh my God. I'm going to be quiet. [52:29] Speaker D: Go ahead, Chad. [52:30] Speaker E: I think it can be. Justin, that's where we talk about. But let's talk about the way it is, not where it can be. The way it is right now is that the community that is selling those micro market or startup plans, they're selling it because they're friends with the business Owner, they golf with the business owner. They're not the Kates of the world not to up a little bit more. They're not the folks that say I want to help so I'm going to do it. They're doing it as a byproduct of the relationship and therefore they don't service the relationship. And so the only way we can bridge that gap is having record keepers and TPAs that are going to step in there for the independent advisor and say, hey, here's the online enrollment videos, here's this kind of service that we can deliver that's going to bridge the gap that a really solid advisor would be doing for you. That's the, that's the only feasible way I see it happening. [53:25] Chad: Or we jump on this bandwagon of [53:29] Mark: selling other services and doing other things [53:33] Chad: for those participants and then the regular Joe or okay, all right, I'll put [53:40] Mark: that on the hopper here. Then the regular Joe or Sally advisor can go down and sell a startup plan that's got, you know, 15, that's [53:50] Chad: a check swing, 15 stick figures and [53:54] Mark: they can make money through some other things. [53:56] Chad: So anyways, I want to move on, but I don't believe it. I don't think that we don't have solutions for the micro market. I think we do. [54:05] Speaker G: Not that we don't either. [54:08] Chad: And I think that the bigger problem [54:09] Mark: is what Pete studied so hard, which is how do we educate and communicate to the employers that they have options, [54:17] Chad: that they can afford those options, that the administrative burden is not that much and that in the end they'll be doing a whole lot of good for [54:24] Mark: the hard working people that are working for their companies. We need to keep pushing that. [54:28] Chad: Let's go to Potpourri. This is going to be our last segment of the day, Pete. We're each allowed to just basically ask you whatever the hell we want. Okay? [54:36] Pete: I'm not a beer. [54:38] Justin: Constantly forget that we do this. [54:40] Chad: Yeah, well, you can come up with [54:42] Mark: it on your feet, Mark. [54:44] Chad: I will start with how much has Empower offered PCs and Aspire for your record keeping business? What was their offer on the table? Geez, they don't see the value in you apparently. [54:58] Mark: I don't know. [54:59] Pete: No, not a zilch. [55:01] Chad: Okay, well let me then. Since that one's a dud, let me back that up. What is your net worth, how much do you make per year and what kind of car do you drive? Chad, go ahead, you can go. [55:11] Speaker E: I was going to say, look at Mark thinking. Mark's getting nervous. There if you could take over, and this probably will be when you won't answer. If you could take over any record keeping platform in the business right now as the head helm and make any changes you want, what would it be? Who would it be? [55:34] Pete: I would probably. You know, I look at a lot of the investment providers that provide record keeping but you have to take their investments and it just drives me nuts. I would want to go in and change them back to what we are, which is completely independent, conflict free and give participants the ability to choose investments not predicated on the platform. [55:57] Speaker E: These are publicly traded companies though. Their investors would eat you alive. [56:02] Chad: That's the proper CEO answer. I'm with Will Hackler. I'd take over Fidelity. [56:07] Mark: Fuck it. [56:08] Pete: Yeah. I'll take over Amazon. No, get into record keeping any day now. [56:15] Chad: Mark, have you come up with a question off. Oh, you've been thinking about it. [56:18] Speaker E: Google or Amazon entering throw some sports questions. [56:22] Justin: Oh wow. We could be here all night. [56:24] Speaker E: That's fun. I'm playing Mark tonight. I need to know if I should start McKinnon. My game already started. [56:30] Justin: It's too late, buddy. Sorry. [56:32] Speaker E: Yeah, well, I put him in. [56:33] Pete: I'm a chad. [56:34] Speaker E: Yeah. [56:36] Justin: My question actually is something that I die. I like to dig into our guests a little bit to research. Yeah. I saw that you're involved in a nonprofit that Chris Godwin started for. For looks like adopting animals. I looked down that list of the. The advisory board that Megatron. Good old Calvin Johnson's on that sucker. Do you know all these people? I mean, yeah, I'm just like. [57:05] Pete: Yeah. One said a kickoff event but I've met Chris a number of times and we're my not taking a different. Well, similar direction. We have a small zoo here. We've got three dogs, two cats. My entire family loves pets and we're thinking about fostering another dog. God bless us. [57:28] Mark: Dogs are the best, man. [57:30] Pete: They are. I love dogs. Less of a cat person, but I still like I feed them. But yeah, Chris is a great, great guy. Phenomenal receiver too, by the way. Once his finger heals, you'll definitely want to put him in your lineup. [57:46] Justin: Yeah. So before you even we finish there, real quick thoughts on Antonio Brown and in how many weeks is he going to be back? I'll look for a job. [57:54] Mark: Holy shit. What's the sound for sports? [57:58] Justin: I hope his first game back that he just runs like, you know, Forrest Gumps. It catches the touchdown and just leaves the stadium and then just leaves forever. I'm so tired of that guy. [58:12] Pete: I Always worry about chemistry. It's just so. It's cliche. Ish. But so important in business and in sports. And the only thing that makes me feel better is that Brady will shut him up or kick him out. [58:27] Justin: And, you know, they did try that in New England and it failed. Right? [58:33] Pete: Yeah. [58:34] Chad: Just saying. [58:34] Pete: Hit it. [58:35] Speaker E: They had Belichick. It was never given an opportunity. Mark. [58:38] Speaker G: Yeah, he got cut right away because of that. [58:41] Speaker E: They released him. [58:42] Speaker G: Yeah, because of the back. His actions. I thought you meant. Anyway, [58:48] Chad: is SportsCenter over? [58:50] Mark: Can I ask him a question about 401k? [58:53] Chad: Yay, sports. Go sports. [58:55] Speaker E: Justin's question. [58:56] Chad: I just. Mark. I just assumed Justin didn't have a question. Justin, what's your question? I actually did. [59:03] Mark: All right. [59:06] Speaker G: So like Mark, I went down the personal route and kind of dug in a little bit. You mentioned something about being into Brassfield. [59:14] Speaker E: How did you. [59:15] Speaker G: The band out of the up and coming band out of Nashville. How did you come across them? Because I couldn't find them anywhere. [59:21] Pete: You still find them very easily if you Google them. We [59:26] Speaker G: like itunes, Spotify, stuff like that. You can't find them anywhere. [59:28] Chad: I'm like, here's the Internet, Justin. Yeah, no, that was. That was an interesting. Okay, Boomer. Okay, millennial. [59:37] Mark: Kind of thing that went on there. [59:38] Chad: Like, just like Spotify. They're on Spotify. And Pete's like, google them. They're on Google. All right, go ahead, Pete. [59:43] Speaker E: Sorry. [59:44] Pete: To answer your question, we did an event in that. Remember when Napa was In Nashville in 2016, we did an event, corporate event, and we had like Kenny Wayne Boyd, I think was the guy who won the voice. And then Brassfield was the warm up band. Brassfield stole the night. They were amazing and super cool and we just became really good friends over time. They come down here all the time, play gigs, insanely talented, and they just cut their first ep, five songs. They're gonna go out to the record companies now and just. They deserve to make it. They are just insanely nice people and really talented. So, yeah, real good friends. [1:00:27] Chad: Will Hackler just called my father in law a gut. [1:00:30] Mark: I'm sure he's trying to type guy, but. [1:00:32] Chad: Yes, I know, papa. No one goes to the Q and A. We're all in the chat bar. Come on. We talked to you about this last [1:00:39] Speaker E: week, but he asked about sucking puppy in the chat bar and he didn't respond, so sorry. [1:00:45] Chad: Jd, can you train him? [1:00:47] Mark: No, I can't. I have a question. It's not about sports or bands. [1:00:57] Chad: You guys still do private Label stuff for advisors. So if I'm an advisor and I do my due diligence on Aspire PCs, I like what you guys are doing. I can slap my own logo, my own name on that thing and kind of build my business that way. [1:01:14] Pete: We don't call it slap, but absolutely, [1:01:16] Speaker E: you can [1:01:18] Pete: work with you. Here's an interesting thing, JD that I found last year as I was going through the DBA course. There's obviously different types of classes. One of them was business analytics. And we got to play with this software called Tableau. And the assignment that I did, I thought, well, let me look at. Let me look at wallet share for our clients, where we have private labeling versus where we downed. And I was blown away that it was like 80 to 100% wallet share for those that we private label versus those that we don't. Because everybody wants to see their own brand. And we do run into people that say they don't want a private label because they want to maintain independence, blah, blah, blah. That's great. But for the ones that we private label, as long as you deliver service, it's amazing what that does. It's really a cool thing. [1:02:11] Mark: Chad and I recently did a panelist deal for the Excel 401K Digital Series conference, and we had an advisor on with us, and he came up with [1:02:22] Chad: something that I call Andre's conspiracy. And that is that he likes the idea of using a TPA versus a [1:02:31] Mark: bundled record keeper because he feels as [1:02:34] Chad: though the bundled record keeper. As we move forward into this, and I'll save this. I'm going to do this on purpose. This participant data. [1:02:45] Speaker E: I got you, jd. I need one. [1:02:46] Mark: Okay, thanks, Chad. [1:02:47] Speaker E: He, he. [1:02:51] Pete: There you go. [1:02:53] Chad: He feels as though maybe he's losing [1:02:57] Mark: a little bit of his control over his clients because the record keeper is so visible. The record keeper is so powerful, the record keeper is so involved. [1:03:07] Chad: And therefore he likes the idea of [1:03:09] Mark: using a TPA because it feels more in control of his own clients. I would say the same thing could be true if he was to private label with a company like yours. [1:03:19] Chad: And so I just want to throw that out to you, like, maybe that's something to think about. This conspiracy of advisors wanting to keep their clients under their umbrella. As we move into this kind of how the data is so valuable world, which we're clearly heading into, maybe Aspire needs to kind of market around that or use. That's just my tidbit to you. You can keep it for free, Pete. [1:03:41] Mark: Take your company to the next level. I don't know. [1:03:44] Speaker E: I feel like Pete knows [1:03:48] Chad: my wife just started her car. That means it's the end of the show. Pete, we can stick around afterwards and chat it up a little bit if you'll hang out with us after the song. Okay, if you're willing to do that. All right, we need to chat. Bar champion. Who's it gonna be? I am not voting for my father in law. [1:04:09] Speaker E: I've got Josh in my point scale. He was out to an early lead but then died off late. Oh, look, right. Josh too. [1:04:17] Chad: One vote Josh. Justin, [1:04:22] Speaker G: I'm going hackler. Definitely not your father in law either after that comment. [1:04:26] Mark: Geez. [1:04:26] Chad: What did he say? [1:04:27] Speaker E: What a dick. [1:04:29] Chad: What did he say? [1:04:30] Speaker E: The packers are boring. [1:04:31] Chad: Oh, he's a Vikings fan. [1:04:34] Speaker E: I miss Paul Senior. [1:04:36] Chad: One vote. One vote will. Who's a pass winner? One vote Josh. Mark, who's your vote? [1:04:41] Justin: David K. My B.S. [1:04:43] Chad: david K. Is spreading the lava round. [1:04:46] Speaker E: I thought you said jfk. [1:04:48] Chad: All right, Pete, do you have a vote for your favorite person in the chat bar? [1:04:52] Pete: Well, I saw Kate say something like, Pete, we need to talk, so I'm going to go with her. [1:04:56] Chad: Oh, you just. You just threw me the underhand right over the plate. Knocked that sucker out. I'll go. Kate Clark. Kate Clark, the CBC champion for the week. Although Craig Eddy. I love you, buddy. I love you, man. [1:05:11] Mark: I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you. [1:05:14] Chad: Okay, let's. Hey, everybody, thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Come back next week. We'd love to see you. Pete, thanks for being with us. And again, Pete, stick around for the.