Robo-Advisor Tools for 401(k) Advisors: Bloom, Vimeo & Scale

[0:03] JD: So Robo advisors is a big thing. It's in the headlines. You see it everywhere. I'm at AT&T Park. I see Schwab Intelligent investing, that just [0:17] Chad: came out March of this year. [0:19] JD: So it's huge. The advisors that you meet with and talk to, concerned about it. And before I even ask that question, is robo anti advisor because. Well, first of all, it talks. Schwab's one. Because Schwab is right. Schwab is all about cut out the advisor, go to the robo advisor. Is that not the principle of Robo advisor? [0:40] Justin: In my mind, I think you're talking two different concepts. So is it cutting out the individual wealth management Advisor or the 401k plan advisor? I think it can be supported by the 401 plan advisor if they're doing more of the fiduciary committee, the education, things like that. But the individual wealth advisor. Yeah, aiming after people like us, saying, hey, we'll do your asset allocation, we'll do that work for you. You don't need to pay somebody 50 basis points to do it. [1:05] JD: Are you saying that the robo Advisor in a 401k world is very similar to the managed accounts of the past and the current? In a way, you guys are familiar with the company Bloom, B, L, O, O, O. Triple O, triple O, triple O. We're gonna talk about them. They're Robo in a way. [1:32] Justin: I think so. [1:33] JD: Tied to 401k, but friendly to the advisor. [1:38] Justin: They're popping up all over the place. [1:40] JD: So let's put a pin in that one. And let's welcome our audience to retireholics episode number 1 1. [1:52] Justin: Fingers are cut. [1:53] JD: What do we do here? We change the retirement plan industry one solo cerveza at a time, right? [2:04] Chad: Well, depending upon the day, perhaps we [2:06] JD: should have multiple like every show. I'm gonna let Mr. Joe chant. Mr. Joe. I'm gonna let Mr. Joe Chancen introduce to us the beer of the episode [2:22] Justin: we have from Missoula, Montana, Big Sky Brewing Company. [2:29] JD: While you're doing that, I love that the phone's going off in the background after the director's. Like, everyone's. [2:33] Justin: So no taking phone calls. Moose drool, which is a brown ale. I thought it was interesting on the the actual six pack holder. You've got to pour your own today, pal. [2:44] JD: Oh, let me get mine while you do yours. [2:46] Mark: JD's mug today too. [2:49] Chad: You have to have a name for that. [2:51] JD: It's just the master mug. [2:53] Chad: You should call that mug Liam Neeson. [2:55] JD: This is made in Germany. [2:56] Chad: Did you fight wolves in a movie? [2:58] JD: It's the Wolf Pack mug. What the heck was the name of that Wolf pack? [3:01] Chad: The Wild, the Wilderness. [3:05] Justin: On their box it says we make water fun. Which I thought was the most interesting part of their beer. We make water fun. Which is very true. We're taking water. We're making it fun. Cheer cells. [3:14] JD: Moose's drool. [3:15] Chad: I thought this was actually moose drool. [3:17] JD: Cheers to episode 11. All right, let's get back to what we're talking about with Bloom. So, Bloom, is it Bloom or do [3:27] Chad: you have to say it Bloom? [3:29] JD: Not sure about that. I didn't ask that question. [3:31] Chad: If anyone from Bloom is watching, we'd love to clarify. [3:34] JD: What is Bloom? Bloom, as far as I understand it, and what we're trying to talk about here for advisors, for industry professionals is what kind of tech is out there, what kind of modern day tech that they should be aware of that, you know? [3:49] Chad: Absolutely none. There's nothing out there. [3:52] JD: They can hitch their wagon too, and potentially, you know, improve their, their service model they're offering. So what is Bloom? [3:58] Chad: You guys ever notice you all fold your legs? And I naturally want to do that, but I'm going rogue today. No folding of my legs. If I do, tell me. Go on. [4:06] JD: Okay. It is, as far as I understand it, it's a participant facing application where you literally sign up, you answer some risk tolerance questions, and I know this sounds freaky, but you give them your username and your password to your record keepers, whether that's Fidelity or Nationwide or Hancock or whatever, and they will do the rest. So they literally log into your account and. And manage your investments for you? [4:36] Justin: Well, let's. I would put a. I wouldn't say manage your investments. They manage your allocation. [4:43] Chad: I can't wait to get to the end of that. How are you gonna drink that? [4:45] Justin: Good. [4:46] JD: In theory, right? [4:47] Justin: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, they're managing your allocation. They're not necessarily tactically managing your investments [4:52] Mark: because only what's available to you. [4:54] JD: They are using the core menu of your wherever you're at to choose funds. [4:59] Chad: But they are saying, and it's on their website, that a majority of the plans that they're looking at for participants are managed incorrectly. [5:08] JD: They're jacked up in some way. [5:10] Chad: They are fixing over 80% of those. [5:12] Justin: Why is that? [5:13] Chad: Because individuals invest with emotion. They don't know what they're doing. They need help. [5:22] JD: They make poor decisions. [5:24] Justin: And we've all seen the charts that show which asset classes actually perform top to bottom. In a given year. And it's about diversific. So I think if we're looking at the average plan and we're saying participants are failing at the way they're investing, it has to do with the fact that they're not diversifying and probably just as important, they're not rebalancing accordingly. And that's what Blooom is saying is you answer these questionnaire, we'll determine what your risk tolerance should be. We'll go into your core menu through your login. We will set up your investment allocation based upon the core menu. We will rebalance you quarterly. We will monitor it ongoing. [5:56] JD: And I want to add they're also very proud of the ongoing engagement campaign. So you'll also be getting emails in your inbox. They use a very kind of PDC esque, like easy speak, edutainment kind of flow, which I was actually kind of a fan of the humor that they [6:13] Chad: come across every little detail, every. [6:16] JD: Did you see the stat that said, like I'm making it up like I usually do? It said like 80, 80%. 80% of people who use Bloom will do better than if they use a Ouija board or a fortune. It was something really fun. [6:31] Mark: My favorite one was if they get fired. [6:33] Justin: Yeah. [6:34] JD: Did you. Sure. You wanted to fire us? [6:39] Justin: And it's a mirror, in case you're wondering. [6:41] JD: Is there a cost? [6:42] Mark: Let me introduce you to your new advisor. That's what it was. [6:44] JD: Yeah. Is there a cost for this thing? [6:46] Justin: Yes. [6:46] JD: Kind of an interesting little cost structure. [6:48] Chad: Very affordable. [6:49] JD: Correct me if I'm wrong, dollar a [6:51] Mark: month and over 20,000 was 15amonth. [6:53] JD: 15amonth. That's a pretty big gap. [6:55] Justin: Let me play devil's advocate because, you know, that's what I like to do. Is this not an asset allocation fund? I mean, one could argue it's slightly tactical, but they're gonna create an allocation for you. They're going to invest the dollars through that, through what they choose for you, and they're going to rebalance ongoing. [7:12] JD: Like I said before, I don't know if they have some kind of secret sauce to their asset allocation. I'm assuming they don't. Asset allocation. I'm assuming they don't. I didn't mean that they did. [7:21] Justin: So. [7:21] JD: Yeah, no, I don't think it's. It's much different than that. [7:25] Chad: Can I add one thing that I thought was just pretty cool and it goes hand in hand with their name. We haven't mentioned it yet, but the idea is as you log in and you Start this account. And more than likely, over 80% of the time, they use a flower to determine the health of your plan. [7:40] Justin: Right. [7:41] Chad: And most of the time, knowing the statistics, the flowers dead. Right. And they help you bring it back to life. So as a very visual person myself, I like that. As you begin to invest more and your account's growing as it should, the flower comes back to life. [7:57] JD: Okay. [7:58] Chad: So for those of you. [8:00] JD: Right. [8:00] Chad: And it kind of makes you want to make that flower grow again. [8:03] JD: I don't want to spend too much time on this one. [8:05] Chad: I think it's a daffodil. I have no clue. [8:10] JD: But I do want to bring a little drama to the situation. And I love the guys at Bloom, but. And what they're doing is really cool. But I asked the question. I said, what happens when you log in to someone's account and they're in a target day fund, which you might argue is, you know, prudent asset allocation? And they said, we will take them out of the Target Dave fund. [8:32] Chad: Really? [8:32] JD: And we will reallocate based on our methodology, which makes sense to me through the core menu. So just be. I like to stir a little bit, you know, once in a while. Do you think targeted funds are fans of that approach? No, I don't think they are. They might face some adversaries. [8:54] Justin: It exists everywhere. I mean, many of these providers are offering a custom allocation model where advisors can go in and use different groups to create 10 different models, and then they use the core menu funds within those models. [9:08] JD: And. [9:09] Justin: And a participant can pick a model and do it. That conversation's been there for a while. And of course, those fund families, they're slightly okay with it because they might get a sliver of one of the funds in there. [9:18] JD: True. [9:19] Justin: If they're not getting the full target date, as we've all seen, every single group that comes in here is touting their target date right now. [9:25] JD: And let me back Bloom pushing for the future or the revolution. Seems to me that proprietary funds and proprietary target dates are taking a lot of hits. Right. And they may go away someday. I mean, with new open architectures, institutional shared glasses, those days are kind of starting to end. So. Not yet, huh? But it's the writings on the wall. Eventually it's gonna. [9:53] Justin: Let's ask us here, because it's gonna tie into the next few. Would you use this on your Capeland. We're in the financial industry. We might be a little different. But honestly, would you use this? [10:03] Mark: Yeah. I mean, as you know, especially for. If I'm an investor who does not know you personally. You. I'm saying, yeah, I think. [10:10] JD: Can I also as an employer, would I offer it to my employer? [10:14] Justin: That's was. That was my next question. Would you use it? [10:16] JD: Yes, I would. [10:17] Justin: Okay. I would not. [10:18] JD: And as an employer, I would be willing to roll this out to my employees. [10:24] Justin: And I think that's an interesting concept because in my mind, they're doing something. And granted it's, it's 15 bucks a month, but they're doing something that I would be getting for free. Something that I would be getting. [10:39] JD: It's not free. [10:40] Justin: Forgive me, it's not free. It's not free. But you can go to just about anywhere and get an allocation breakdown of what your spread should be between stocks and bonds and cash equivalents. [10:51] Mark: Do you and I know the answer is no here. Do you have the time to be doing that on a quarterly basis? [10:55] Justin: No, but you can set it up directly on the site. We won't say who our plans with, but we can rebalance for you and do all that. [11:01] JD: Can we caveat that chad Johansson is Mr. Logical and controls everything? [11:07] Chad: Yeah. [11:07] JD: Descendant of Spock, Star Trek. [11:10] Chad: I think it's important to note that this sort of tech and these sort of concepts and ideas, like, obviously Bloom isn't the only one out there doing it. [11:18] JD: Talk about I joined. [11:21] Chad: I'm just in this case. They're really looking at the millennial generation and people who are just getting in the Silicon Valley, these young guys and gals who are getting into the workforce and making good dollars, that maybe they don't want to sit down with an advisor. Yes, they're still going to pay for that service, but they just want to be able to pop on their phone and do everything well. [11:40] Mark: And it also makes it so dang easy. I mean, think about people who don't. We think about automatic enrollment. People get into it just because they don't want to deal with it or [11:50] Chad: say, no, that's true. [11:51] Justin: Yeah, but that's not paying attention. [11:54] Mark: I don't have to pay attention. This thing can increase. [11:56] Justin: But we'll have it offline. But my question for you would be, how is that different than a risk tolerance fund? [12:02] JD: And I would say because Bloom would say it's not just about set it and forget it. It's about giving the amount of allocation, then keeping them engaged as you go on. But let's talk about I joint flower. Dude, you want to grow the flower. You do want to grow the flower. I kill about. I join. Which I think is that ijoinsolutions.com a little different than this for sure. I join looks to me to be more. Likes to be more like an employee enrollment slash education at that point. Like, hey, you shouldn't be doing 3%, you should be doing 8%, you know, and you should be stepping it up every year and then it moves on to give an element of gamification, we're told, and then even a flow of retirement readiness. Right? Like are you on track to get where you're going? [12:55] Chad: Can you please specify and define gamification? [12:58] JD: Gamification for me is, I hope at [13:01] Chad: this point our editor puts an actual definition below. [13:03] JD: There he goes again, doing his making life difficult. Gamification for me is when you're involved in something and I'm gonna get hippie out and use my example of my meditation app. I use. I get little awards and stars. The more days in a row I do meditation and I'm eager to get those little awards. It makes me feel good about myself. Sometimes I even win free things for staying dedicated. So that's gamification. Could you translate that into a retirement plan world? Absolutely. You upped your deferral for two years in a row. Way to go. Here's a star. Not a flower, but a star. Let's talk about the retirement readiness part of it because I want to be clear. The reason why we're talking about these types of solutions is for advisors to be able to up their game. And so if they can walk into a plan sponsor and say, not only do I do great fiduciary services, help you pick a core menu, etc, etc, etc, but I've also vetted out some of these really cool techs or applications that help employees really get on track to retire, AKA retirement readiness. It's not a bad thing. [14:11] Justin: I mean, not at all. And I think many of these groups are targeting advisors that have fairly decent sized books and or rias to say, hey, you can make this your own. You don't have to say, I vetted out these different groups. You can say, hey, here's my process. This is what I use. This is how I engage folks. [14:27] JD: I like that. [14:29] Justin: And I think from a conceptual standpoint, these types of tools from an advisor's perspective, and I've been saying this for years, I sit with advisors all the time and they say, how should I build my practice? And I talk about making it scalable. This makes it scalable whether they're with Nationwide or Hancock or Fidelity or T. Rowe or anybody else, whoever they're with, if you have these types of tools and applications, then the way you service your client can be the same regardless of the type of record keeper they happen to be with. And I think that that's powerful if you end up having 50 plans and you don't have to learn the fiduciary review tools from 19 different providers. And some are in, you know, very out, we'll say out there, smaller dynamic type providers. This could be a big step for [15:12] JD: your book when you talk about being able to document the value that you provide to a plan. Retirement readiness is that next space where advisors should be coming with metrics, coming with results. Like look what's happened because of the work. [15:28] Justin: Do you see, do you guys see anybody doing that? [15:30] Chad: No. [15:30] JD: And they should. Right? That's gonna be. [15:33] Justin: I get asked, I see record keepers doing it. Right, right. [15:36] JD: I promise I wasn't going to talk [15:38] Chad: about me talking about it. It's out there. They have access to that sort of those tools already. But these are different outlets and probably more customizable. [15:46] JD: I made it a point not to talk about the department of labor fiduciary rules on this show since people. But hey, is that something that's happening right now? [15:55] Chad: Because I keep getting this spam mail about 600. [15:59] JD: If you are a fiduciary, which pretty much every living human being is at this point, you need to document your services and your value for your reasonable fees. These things go to that. [16:11] Justin: Is Bloom a fiduciary? [16:12] JD: I don't think so. We can let us know. Bloom, if you're a fiduciary, I think [16:18] Justin: you're acting in a fiduciary capacity. I mean you're picking these specific investments that the participant is going to invest in, not just the allocation. I'd be curious to find that out. [16:28] Chad: Is there a way that a participant could click a waiver and go around that by like relinquishing them of those duties? [16:36] JD: Well, that's another point. [16:37] Mark: Like what protection does the participant have? [16:40] Chad: Well, we're going back to I told [16:41] Justin: you like I think it's all of this though. [16:43] JD: I think it really is Third third Tech. It's been around a little while. They're doing some pretty funny advertising. But so this is vwise. And vwise started off as enrollment education via video. So basically they'd put good looking actors in front of a camera. [17:03] Chad: I used to do it for them. [17:05] Justin: They keep calling you guys called me [17:06] Chad: to do this show. [17:07] JD: So you pay more and they'd be charismatic and they talk in an easy non vendor speak type of way and roll people through a really kind of engaging enrollment meeting and you can customize it based on the the provisions of the plan. Whether there's safe harbor or a match or salary deferral only. So anyways, they've started to branch into some other things. But let's just talk about the education piece. Video enrollment education. [17:34] Justin: Not just enrollment though. [17:35] Chad: Right? [17:35] JD: Cool thing. Ongoing education. [17:37] Justin: You can pick different topics. I mean I've seen them blast me with emails. Yeah. Like asset allocation or market overviews. [17:44] Chad: Their website. It is a retirement tour. Tour for your employees. [17:49] JD: Okay, I like that. [17:51] Chad: So it's a big deal. [17:53] JD: Video enrollment and video education. I'm going to change it. Good thing. [17:58] Chad: Great thing. [18:00] JD: Is it, let me ask you now you guys are going to sell hundreds of retirement plans in this next year. How many of them are going to use a live education meeting in their cafeteria, so to speak? [18:15] Chad: 99%. [18:17] JD: That's the answer I was fishing for. Why are they not using these videos? [18:22] Justin: I think some are not these in particular but many of the providers have some sort of generic enrollment process that's videoed and I think they're taking advantage of it. The advisors are taking advantage of the record keeper product but they're still doing the in person and perhaps giving that link to the plan sponsor to use for ongoing hires. But I still don't think enough for embracing it. [18:47] JD: And I'm not anti live education meaning I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great way. But it has some downsides to it. I mean on the first hand I think you mentioned earlier kind of pre show it takes time, energy and money from the plan sponsor. Right. You got employees that are not dedicated by Donuts Pizza, McDonald's. Don't say I support McDonald's from the vegetarian. I didn't eat any of it. So there's that that goes in. There's also the simple fact that those meetings typically happen once a year. What about all the people that are hired between those two meetings? They didn't get to go to that meeting. So they have to wait 10 months till the next one or they only get a little enrollment book. [19:29] Justin: And in my mind, honestly and I said I love vys and I really do. I love what I've seen so far. It's great on the initial enrollment. It's good for ongoing hires. I think it's a great way for an advisor if you embrace this to at the beginning of the year set up your drip campaign to these participants as well as HR and say hey I'm gonna send out four different videos this year. One's gonna be on roth inside a 401k plan. One's gonna be on whatever the other topics might be. And now all of your clients, all of them, regardless of providers, are going to get this communication. That's awesome. That's an awesome way. We talked about advisors. You talk Robo world pushing in on the investment and allocation side. This is a great way for advisor to show part of their process and employee engagement. Here's my big negative and this is not something I thought about until right now. All of this education and enrollment and these videos, they don't tie to a specific product. Which I was saying is a good thing for advisors or snap ons. Yeah, but so how do they leave that, hey, go enroll, click on your website and figure out how to do it. And now it's up to the participant to be like, oh, I gotta log in and where do I go and how do I do this and where does it get communicated to? Because it's not specific to any provider. [20:42] JD: I bet you Vwise does you think so? [20:45] Justin: Like hey, so your plan's with principal. So this is where you log in. [20:49] Chad: Cause they're pretty cosy, Bloom. [20:51] JD: Obviously it's a moot point. Doesn't matter. [20:53] Justin: It's not about that. [20:54] JD: But I join. I don't know, maybe I'd be interested [20:58] Justin: to find out if it were specific because I would be excited. They'd probably get me motivated. And then when it comes to tactically doing that, let's be honest, we deal with a lot of those participants who are living their job and not focused on retirement. And they can't figure out how to enroll, they can't figure out how to get in the website. It's this long drawn out process to [21:17] JD: wrap up this segment and move on to exciting things like the wheel of ice and the quiz of death. This is gonna be fun. [21:27] Chad: Today's videos are 24, 7, 365. So it fits with our modern day world of people who work non stop. They can do it anytime. [21:36] JD: The takeaway from this segment for our audience is I just want our audience advisors specifically to know that, hey, stay tuned into what's out there. There's some neat things that you can latch onto. Your model, your solution that can give you a leg up and I think [21:53] Justin: that's a good thing and it ties into everything else we've talked about. Build process. Right? And this is a great way to build your process. [21:59] Chad: All right, so much out there. [22:00] JD: Let's Rock and roll. The hand can bring in the Wheel of Ice. And we'll see how Mark fares this [22:06] Justin: episode when Wheel of Ice comes out. I hear JD Singing every time. Every time I do. [22:14] JD: I would also like to bring the Quiz of Death over at the same time. [22:22] Justin: I know what the Quiz of Death is, and I just watched it shatter. A pencil or a pen. You got a lot more. So. [22:28] Chad: But what's the. [22:29] Justin: I think I have a lot more bone inside my finger. [22:31] Chad: There's a chance that you could win, though, and not have to do it. [22:35] JD: There is. [22:35] Justin: There is. And I should have. I should have not been shocked. [22:39] JD: So let's spin the wheel, please. Can we spin the wheel? Do we have our Smirnoff? [22:42] Mark: Oh, we don't. [22:44] JD: We do. [22:44] Chad: Oh, not available. And you gotta spin the wheel. [22:48] JD: Spin the wheel hand. I hope it's not me. I really don't want it to be me. Last time I pounded a squaring off ice, it took like four hours. [22:58] Justin: It was bad. [22:59] Chad: Yeah. [22:59] Justin: There were no odds. [23:01] JD: It's Mark. [23:02] Justin: Marky. Yes. [23:06] JD: Okay. Mark, it's you. [23:08] Chad: You know what? I'm not gonna kneel down today. [23:10] Justin: I'm gonna say that every time you end up kneeling, usually. [23:14] JD: And as you're kind of prepping for your Smirnoff Ice. [23:17] Chad: Well, if I ever get it open by. Let's talk about non existent man over here. [23:22] JD: Let's talk about the Quiz of Death. I'm going to ask Chad Johansen a question relating to the fiduciary, the new fiduciary rules that released on April 6. If he can correctly answer the question, I will put my finger in the mousetrap. [23:38] Justin: I like this. [23:39] JD: We have a mousetrap here, everybody. If be careful when you throw cameras in front of cameras, Brandon, one goes down. If you incorrectly answer the quiz of Death question, you will put your finger in the mousetrap. [23:55] Chad: Fair. [23:56] JD: Okay, go ahead. [23:58] Chad: No, I was going to wait for you to start talking about the question so I could just. [24:02] JD: The question is going to be around the new fiduciary rules. Okay. So within the fiduciary rules, there is an area dedicated to investment education versus advice. Okay. And to quote a John Hancock piece here, it says that it allows for general participant investment education similar to that that was previously allowed. Because you could do that, Right? Education versus advice. Under what? And it's. It's an interpretive bulletin. Do you know the number of the interpretive bulletin? [24:34] Justin: Absolutely not. [24:35] JD: You don't? [24:36] Justin: No. [24:36] JD: I think I might have got this one right had you Asked me. Okay, this 96 1. It's right there. Didn't you study for the damn. [24:44] Justin: Yeah, because I knew what questions. [24:45] JD: Go ahead, put your finger in the thing. [24:47] Chad: Hold on. [24:49] JD: Careful. It's sensitive. [24:54] Justin: Cat. [24:55] JD: Go, go. Ah, [25:00] Justin: it's in one piece. It's in one piece. [25:03] JD: You all right? [25:04] Justin: It's gonna bruise. I can feel the blood coming on [25:07] Mark: the side over here. [25:08] JD: I suggest you study up on your [25:10] Chad: lactose intolerant codes, buddy. [25:13] Justin: Codes 96 ask for interpretations, not codes 96. Put your finger in here. [25:19] Chad: JD would you have got that? [25:21] JD: No. Thank you. Okay, now, did we get our Smirnoff down? [25:26] Justin: No. [25:27] JD: Yeah, I didn't even. That's how good mark is. Mr. Smirnoff, we're gonna move on to hashtag. [25:36] Chad: Not your typical advisor. [25:39] JD: Very good. [25:39] Chad: I didn't know that was getting brought over to me, [25:45] JD: so I wrote a recent blog post. Self promotion 401k.com f o u r01k.com [25:55] Chad: yeah, if you want to see a picture of JD in the water, like sexy, dripping, dripping water off. [26:03] JD: Can you stop slowing down our progress? With your tight shirt wrapped against his [26:07] Chad: stomach, looking out towards the abyss. [26:10] JD: You spent a lot. [26:12] Justin: You spent some time looking at this. [26:13] Chad: It's the wallpaper on my ear at home. [26:17] JD: I want to talk. In that article or that post, I talk a bit about advisors showing that they get. I'm gonna say it, that they get shit done. And if they can do that, they can win a lot of new plans. And I kind of got this from you, believe it or not. You told me that people needed. Advisors need to go in and show tangible stuff as opposed to just talking about what they do and how cool they are, what service they provide, show what they do. I want to kind of talk a bit more about that or help our advisors, because that's what not your typical advisor is about. It's about upping your game. Right. And making it solid. So what are some ideas around showing or proving how you impact the plan or how you create results within a 401k plan? Ideas, concepts. What's a typical. [27:14] Chad: It just lines up perfectly with those texts. [27:17] JD: Retirement readiness is something that's been kicked around for a couple years now. What does that mean in terms of proof? Are advisors going to clients at review meetings and showing them progress of retirement readiness? Are they saying, here are your participants last year. Here were. They were. Here's where they were on track to the retirement. Here's where they are now. Look at the improvement. Is that happening? [27:44] Justin: It is a bit and there's a different way, there's different ways to quantify it. And most of the time, honestly, it's not advisors that's doing it, it's record keepers. When you look at their annual contract reviews, their fiduciary reviews. And I had an advisor actually present one to an existing client even though they were entertaining a move to a new provider showing that, hey, I came in in June of last year and I did education the year before. We had 86 pings on the website because the provider shows this 86, 86 times the website was accessed. Of those 86, like 4, 50 of them were to look at your balance. And then the coming year when she did her education, there was like 194 times they accessed and 80 of them were still to look at balances or so. But a bunch of them were to readjust their allocation and to increase deferral rates. And so she was able to quantify the efforts that I made in those education meetings. Those one on ones led to more interaction, people being involved within the plan. [28:40] JD: That's a great example of a simple first step, you know, just that interaction. I think next step would be to show some type of statistics or methodology in terms of their account balances and where they are and track their retirement. Another one that I want. Go ahead. [28:54] Justin: I think a lot of people are looking at deferral rates, Judy. I think, I think many are saying my goal because I can't control the market and in terms of retirement, getting people closer to being retirement ready, limiting the gap that there might be between what they've saved and what they need. But many are saying because I can't predict the market, what I want to focus in on is deferrals. I want to increase participation and up the deferrals for people and I want to get them involved earlier. [29:19] JD: I think that's a greater, that's a great first step and a better than doing nothing. But I would argue with you that the next evolution of that would be the reality of my retirement readiness. And yes, looking at my investments, maybe my investments have been too conservative for a little while and depending upon what has happened with the markets, I need to change my game because I'm not going to cross the finish line when I should. And so yeah, but I agree that getting deferrals up is obviously the first step. One other thing I wanted to bring up or one of many other things is I'd like to see advisors start to document the things they do more. If you get calls from participants in the middle of the day, in the evening, on a weekend and you support them with their questions. I would say make notes of that. Write that down, document it. If you're working with human resources to solve a problem, I mean, in the real world, how many times are we working with advisors on client issues of some kind or another? It happens quite often. Document that. Why am I saying this? I think an advisor should go into a fiduciary review meeting and not only review the funds, review retirement readiness, talk about fees and things. They should say, hey, let me show you what I've done for you in the past 12 months, past six months, past three months. Let me show you how many times I've worked with the employees. Let me show many times I've worked with HR or payroll or you, the fiduciaries. I think that would be a good thing. [30:49] Justin: And going beyond that too, right? Education within the industry. How many events did I attend? What did I learn? Did I drip on you? [30:55] JD: Did you read my frickin notes? That was my next one. [30:59] Justin: See, I'm jumping ahead of you. [31:00] JD: Yeah. Document your industry. Conference attendance and study time or new licensing and awards. [31:05] Justin: You read that? Oh wow. Licensing and awards. You're going? [31:08] JD: Yeah. If you got an award, you should let them know. Right. [31:13] Justin: On that same topic. And this was part of your write up. I have an advisor and she's fantastic. She's doing a really, really great job. Who? I watched a first meeting presentation of hers and often a lot of conversation gets turned over to us in first meeting presentations because it's about design, children at the office. [31:33] JD: That's how friendly we are here. Sorry, go on. [31:35] Justin: And she walked in and about halfway through the conversation she was asking some questions about employee engagement and fiduciary reviews. And she found the perfect time. You know what she did? She stood across the table, her service agreement and her exact words, it was awesome to watch live in color, was, hey, these are the things you're paying your current advisor for that you're not getting. And this is what I do. And here's a documented process of what I do. And she gathered some of the pieces from our 401k Academy site in terms of the agreements themselves. And she was able to tangibly show the client, this is how many education meetings I do. This is what I will come in on a fiduciary review status. This is how I help with initial investment selection. And they both sign it. And I can tell you the look on the client's face. And this was. We were in With a board. So there's five people, one employee in on this meeting. They were loving it. I mean hook, line and sync are like, okay, we've heard this story before, but you're proving this is what you do. It's written down. So we've been saying it for years, but you talk about differentiating yourself. There you go. That's a great way to do it. [32:38] JD: I was just like you just said, just to back you up, I was talking about, oh, go in and show your current client all the things, take all the stuff you're doing for your current clients and show them to the ones that you want to win. Right, Right. I mean, well, that's where our mind [32:49] Justin: is usually on the sales side. [32:51] JD: But that's a perfect, perfect example. Anything else that an advisor can do to, to show what's going on, you know, what they're accomplishing or what separates them, that goes dale on me. [33:07] Justin: Well, the hard part is what you have written down there most has to do with existing clients. And I'm thinking when you're stepping into a point of sale, what do you need to do to show them you're different? [33:18] Chad: I'm not a creature. [33:20] Justin: I'm not a huge nice toss. [33:22] JD: I'm not a huge selling low cost stuff. But if you've gotten clients savings, right, you've moved them from one vendor to another or you found prospects in the past where their fees were out of where out of whack or they should be, and you've able to show them products that lowered their fees, you could show them those types of results, make some types of claims, you're increasing their value. Yeah, thank you. I don't think selling you can show your efforts. Show your efforts. No. [33:56] Justin: And we had this conversation in our sales meeting this morning when we all sat down that there are different ways to quantify fees and the impact of fees. And we saw some neat tools that different providers are using to say, hey, if Your plan is 20 basis points more expensive, what kind of impact will that have on the total retirement accounts over the course of a 10 year period? And an advisor can use that in perhaps even showing after a fiduciary meeting and getting a concession on cost, going into a client and saying, look, I got a 20 basis point, mom's dragging [34:29] Chad: the kid out of the office. [34:30] Justin: Now I got a 20 basis point concession for our cost by us doing this fiduciary, this kind of rfp and this is the kind of impact that it's gonna have on the participants. So good job, committee Way to go. Look at what we've accomplished. There are tools like that out there. [34:44] Chad: Yeah. [34:44] JD: So that's my takeaway there. [34:45] Chad: Well, I think I add one more piece. Obviously we're leaving out self promotion here. What could advisors do is work with us. [34:54] JD: Mark's always going well. Do you realize that on this show one of the rules is we're not supposed to self promote all the time. [35:00] Chad: So work with the TPA that has a potentially groundbreaking webisode series that rhymes with schmollicks. Utilize their knowledge and abilities, Bring us in. Also going forward with that too is you talk about scalable business practices is utilize record keepers. Find a couple. Don't have seven and eight that you're having to do. Use a couple, get to know the local wholesalers that we even partner with and work with. That can make your life easier just the same way we do. So leverage partners. In addition, leverage the tech that's available, show differentiation and start winning new business. Yeah, that's a good opportunity there. [35:48] JD: So let's wrap it up and touch on a few things. One, maybe, I don't know. I'm assuming by this episode that the beer of the month contest is still on. We'll see. So we always say the first 50 people to comment on what. What beer they think would go best on retireholics. And when I say coming on, it was at the Facebook page and the LinkedIn page. Right. Either he doesn't. Yeah, it's at Facebook. [36:20] Justin: Or we haven't released that. [36:21] JD: You can go back. You can go. Well, because you're gonna confuse our audience. [36:25] Chad: We haven't released their favorite beer though. [36:27] JD: Right. It's her favorite beer. Beer that they'd like to see on the episode. Yeah, we should try on the episode. If you need to go check the rules, go check episode nine. I talk about it first there. So do that if you haven't done that already. I do wanna. This isn't self promotion. I do want to thank. We've gotten a huge outpour of audience people. I mean, we have got people left and right now reaching out, telling how they love the show and how they can't wait for future episodes, how they get the whole concept. So I'm not gonna spend too much time on that. But I think that that's really cool. Please keep doing it. [37:02] Justin: Probably we do have interaction. [37:04] JD: We should start mentioning some people's names in the future. So we'll figure out the best way to do that. We will be filming live at the Northern California Retirement Plan Invitational. I think that's it. [37:20] Chad: Is four more words in there? [37:22] Justin: Yeah. It's the fourth annual [37:26] JD: now on Cinco de Mayo. We'll be doing our second outdoors. I said filming. [37:31] Chad: I don't think free Holy will be able to be there. [37:34] JD: So that's coming up. And I say this, but I'm gonna keep saying it. Social media, man. Check us out. There are retireholics accounts at Instagram, at LinkedIn, at Facebook, on Twitter. And get out there and check it out. MySpace. [37:53] Justin: Does that exist anymore? [37:54] JD: I'm gonna create one Tinder right now. And with that, we are out. The retireholics, changing the retirement plan industry. One beer at a time, [38:18] Speaker E: Then turn it off and live your life. Okay, that's got lights in it. [38:22] Justin: Okay. [38:23] Speaker E: Turn everything off that has a light and try to live your life. [38:27] Chad: Bane didn't need lights. [38:29] Speaker E: Where's your phone? [38:30] JD: It's right there. [38:30] Speaker E: That's got lights in it, but it's not on. Batman, guess what. Your phone's now mine. [38:37] Chad: Oh, my God. [38:38] JD: Give me my phone. [38:39] Speaker E: Oh, turn off the tv. [38:42] JD: Okay. [38:42] Chad: Where's the remote? [38:43] Speaker E: Turn it off. [38:45] Chad: I'm fine. [38:46] Speaker E: Yeah, you are. [38:47] Chad: I am. I'm gonna go to. [38:49] Speaker E: I'm fine. [38:49] Justin: You got gab. You gotta go. [38:52] JD: Mark, you gotta go unplug the Christmas. [38:55] Speaker E: That's too scary.