SECURE 2.0 Tax Credits for Small Employer Plans

[0:00] JD: Charts. That wasn't the actual headline, but that's my version of it. This is important news for retirement plan advisors. Hell, third party administrators, industry pros. You know, we've met certified public accountants. This secure 2.0 tax credits are a big deal. We've talked about it. But now you got a handy dandy little, little summary piece created by Kelsey Mayo, a benefits attorney and an acting benefits attorney. And then she also moonlights with the American Retirement association as Director of Regulatory Affairs. She put this little puppy together. There's some cool little chart graphs. What do you call those things below there? [0:54] Chad: But it's a chart. [0:56] JD: And what I like about it is it. It just very simply outlines all the major specifics about these things like who's eligible, how much you can get, how it kind of winds down after third year, fourth year, fifth year. It's everything we've talked about. It's this. It's this 5k to start up a plan. Or should say the lesser of. Let's use her chart, shall we? The lesser of $5,000 or 250 times the number of eligible non highly comped employees. So we had done the math on that and what? [1:36] Chad: There's a minimum there too though. [1:37] JD: 20. If you're at 20 people, right. You're hitting the 5k. Must have at least one non highly. Right. So people could fuck that up here in the future. Little greedy, like owner only. People are trying to like offset their stuff. That's not going to work. Even I say owner only. You guys run into like all highly comped plans sometimes. They exist, right? [2:00] Chad: Yeah. An established business that everybody's been there for a couple of years and they're all highly comped. Now go unbeknownst to you, because I knew you would most certainly say no to this, Justin and I did create a tax credit calculator that you could plug in the information and it would calculate the minimum, the max for three consecutive years in a row. I haven't updated it for secure 2.0. [2:27] Mark: You could just say we all created it. [2:29] Chad: We all. I can't give you credit, Mark. [2:31] JD: I was really part of it. [2:33] Mark: We're a team, Chad. I was telling you, Brandon. I'm just. Sorry, jd, I know I'm not supposed to do this. The buttons aren't working. [2:42] JD: Can I just say that Brandon had Internet? I lost the Internet today and I had to go. I'm on a wireless connection. So Brandon's been putting together duct tape and super glue in the last 30 minutes. It's funny you say that Chad, part of me was gonna say, like, I'm so tired with everyone's summary of secure 2.0. That. And I've made this complaint before. Right. Like, can't we as an industry just kind of settle in on like two or three providers to give us this. But a calculator, that's a, that's a different angle on it. So. And I would now I would say Kelsey's charts or a different angle on it. There's plenty of summaries out there that you kind of have to read through and figure out, but I'd love to see our calculator if it actually works. And, and looking at Kelsey's chart is phenomenal. But anyways, back to the old deal. You guys, like, what a freaking opportunity. We'll move on. You must understand this and figure out how you're going to leverage it. Whether you're a, a third party administrator, sales person, whether you're working for a record keeper, especially if you're an advisor. You need to know this thing by the back of your hand. I think Kelsey's little chart might help you out. But figure out what your pitch is going to be. How are you going to let startups know how much they can get in the credit? It goes beyond that. I don't even think I paid attention or understood that there was a automatic enrollment credit. [4:12] Chad: Always has been, always has been. [4:14] JD: And then don't forget, when's the last [4:16] Mark: time you sold a plan? [4:17] JD: Jd, don't forget the, don't forget the match for the, for the profit sharing. Thousand bucks. That's, that's nothing to, you know, nothing to. What's the term you turn your head back on? I don't know. Yeah, so that's pretty cool. [4:36] Chad: Hey, we get asked all the time, how can we market toward certified public accountants? And we usually. I kind of lead advisors to say it's not the best avenue. It really isn't. And I'm happy to have that debate with anybody at any point. But this is a great tool, what Kelsey's put together there, to reach out to those certified public accountants and talk them through this. [4:57] JD: They are very interested in helping their clients save money and things like this. Tax credits would be huge. And I think in life a lot of people, I think most industry people understand this, but a lot of regular folk don't. Certified public accountants, it cannot stay up on all this stuff. So they're, they're usually well behind the curve. And so they need people like advisors, third party administrators that literally live, breathe and sleep this specific niche to, to help them and show them the way. So that's a great, great point, Chad. Let's move on. This is big. Okay. Tom Condren three piece unveils the 401 Tech Advisor survey. I know from behind the scenes that Tom has been working on this for a long time. So let's see if I can really. Yeah, let's see if I can do this. Some justice with this, by the way. [6:01] Mark: That takes a long time to do. [6:02] JD: It's beautifully designed, really. Thumb firm with a knot. Does Mark even know this? Something? [6:12] Mark: I mean, I, I, I went on there and I said, did you. Did. Did you hire JD to do this? [6:19] Chad: Like, hey, my exact, My exact thought. [6:22] JD: Are you being serious? Or. [6:24] Chad: When. Yeah, when I clicked on it, I went, oh, Brandon will get so mad at me for clicking the take survey button. It doesn't tell me what this is for. It doesn't tell me where I'm going. There's no information on the page. It's just a button that says take survey. [6:36] JD: So. [6:37] Mark: Brandon, I've seen commercials that do this, so I don't. It can't be that hard. [6:43] JD: Oh, you've really, You've really, you've really gone against my thing. So. Yeah, Brandon Samara McKenzie and I were hired to build this for him. [6:52] Chad: Well, what you're showing us, I imagine on the website, this is, this is [6:56] Mark: pro bono work, right? You just threw it together. [6:59] JD: It took a lot of time. And anyway, so, yeah, that actually kind of hurts. [7:03] Mark: No wonder our movie's not out yet. [7:04] JD: What. [7:05] Chad: What Brandon is showing on the screen there is not at all. I type in401tech.com and there is nothing but a landing page that has a button that says, take survey. [7:15] Justin: Take the survey. [7:15] Mark: And that's what hit the button. [7:17] Chad: Chad, I'm not hitting the damn button. I don't even know what it's for. [7:20] Mark: Oh, my God. [7:22] Chad: Wow. [7:22] JD: You guys. You guys know what I've taught you? [7:24] Chad: Yeah, [7:27] JD: one second. [7:27] Justin: We didn't do the website, so, yeah, [7:29] JD: hit pause for one second. I should have, like, prepped you guys. I didn't realize you guys were gonna go. I am actually trying to present to the world something that we've worked really hard on with Tom, and you guys are all over it, like, well, don't let me. [7:43] Justin: Let me in with those. Those guys. [7:44] JD: We worked our ass off at creating a survey that you could do in, like, two or three minutes. And I don't want to take credit for the concept. This is Tom's idea. But we wanted to be something that looked beautiful, which I think it does behind you, but was easy for you to click, give your satisfaction and get through that thing quickly. I want you all to know and everyone listening in that this is version 1.0 of a much bigger, much grander, much robust idea all around an advisor's tech stack and the data and the information that we can learn from that. I challenge anyone in our retirehalics family, everyone listening in out there, that's an advisor, please go to this. Take the time to fill it out. Like I said, it's two or three minutes. I think this is. Will do a world of good for our, our community of 401k advisors all across the country. And Tom's vision for the future is, is a world where we are on the same playing field as the planners and the wealth managers when it comes to tech stack. And there's a place where you can go to find out who's using what. How happy are they with it. And so anyways, keep your eyes peeled for further evolutions from 401 Tech Advisor survey. Chad, to your point, most people that are getting this link are getting it as a link through an email or through social media. Sending them directly to401tech.com was not the major build out of all this. And 401k tech.com will evolve. This was just thrown up. So your guys's kind of feelings on that are accurate. All the time and energy was spent on the survey itself. [9:22] Chad: Okay. [9:22] Mark: I literally was just, I was just being facetious. I was. I could tell exactly what was going on, so I had to try to jab you a little bit. And obviously with three Piece being here, I'm gonna lay into that a little bit. But I want to say for the record that I have nothing against any of this. [9:39] JD: Well, I want to say for the record, this is a new company that we started. We work really hard on this and so you guys for the first time in years have actually really hurt my feelings. So. [9:51] Mark: Oh, welcome to the club. [9:53] Chad: JD Take our. Take our criticism as a way to improve jd. There should be some content on the landing page. [10:01] JD: Okay. So. Well, I think Tom's probably like squirming in his chair right now. He agrees. The. The web page itself for ontech.com will evolve to an actual informational thing. This was more of a. Almost like a beta test to get the survey out. And so you're right. The. The web page was simply nothing more than a place to. Yeah. [10:22] Chad: And to make it very clear as Brandon got on the screen there and laughed. Brandon sent out like 14 test emails to see if people would click on links to our company over the last 24 hours. So I was on high alert when I saw that. Come on. Click on this button. No chance. [10:39] JD: Well, it's safe to click, but now [10:41] Chad: I have and the survey looks awesome. I will fill it out after our [10:44] JD: show for everyone listening. The 1.0 version of this has an advisor. Chad has 10 areas. Client relationship management, prospecting, request for proposal, proposals, plan onboarding, benchmarking, investment monitoring, fiduciary compliance, financial wellness, and then manage accounts. Yes, there will be future versions that will include other areas. This was the first stab at it. And yeah, anyways, I'm biased, but I think it was well done. And again, I encourage everyone to fill it out. Let's lighten the mood. Maybe it'll. I kind of hope the wheel lands on me so spin the wheel if I'm drown my sorrows the wheel of ice. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, Brian Anderson at 401K Specialist magazine. Sully's little replacement over there wrote an article titled how to build a 401k practice by cold Calling. Do you remember some past episodes where I said, hey, let's check in on this Stephen Wilkinson guy? Like, he was kind of on my radar. And I tried to share his stats with everybody and kind of dig into a little bit. Well, Brian blew me away. He wrote a very detailed article and basically did everything I was trying to do the last few times I brought this up as a topic. So I highly recommend you go out and. And give it a little read. But let me. Let's check back in on good old Stephen and see how he's. How he's been faring. His whole strategy here for this article is that he's done this math. He's got this equation. It should bring you guys back up to speed. Nine hours of calling will equate to an appointment. [12:46] Mark: Yes, Mark, Sorry, because I know you [12:50] Chad: don't like it when I interrupt you, [12:51] Mark: but I just felt like before you got into that, because you're kind of jumping into what I would call the meat and potatoes of that article where I didn't realize the dude's backstory. And now I. I think from videos, I understood that his mother was in cold calling, so there was already a kind of a fascination there. But I didn't realize he had already built a practice and been successful and had that again. Maybe I didn't look at his LinkedIn close enough. [13:20] JD: Whatever. [13:20] Mark: I Didn't. I wasn't a snoop. [13:21] Chad: Right. [13:21] Mark: But so when I read that, I had. I have a very different interpretation of what's going on now. [13:26] JD: Yeah, he didn't just, he didn't just like, no. [13:29] Mark: Just wake up one day and go, like, I'm just gonna do this. [13:31] Chad: Yeah, yeah. [13:32] JD: No, but he did want to document and start from scratch and, and be very transparent online and potentially fail. [13:41] Justin: Miserable. We don't know. [13:42] JD: Well, let's get to that a little bit and show everyone his process. But yeah, you're right. He has a history of working in this business. He wasn't a total rookie here. His, his Math equation is 9 hours of calling equals an appointment. In the article it reads that his plan Is to get 48 leads per year, which is four per month, based on my surfer math. And I was kind of like, okay, this makes sense. I'm okay with this. And then he has a 15 to 20% closing ratio. You know, I can be a dick. I was like, okay, I can swallow that. That sounds very reasonable. And I was thinking to myself, and I'm like, wait a second, that's like 10 clients per year. He did an average of that. He would make 10k. He actually uses $10,500 per client, which I'm willing to even swallow that one, you know, especially if you're looking at kind of this like what, 2 to 20 million or something? Like, I think that's a decent average. But based on all that math, you know, that's like $100,000 in revenue, you know, in a year. He's doing a three year thing here and claiming he's going to get to a million dollars in revenue. So there's, there's a conflicting thing in this article. I read the next paragraph down and he's claiming that he wants to get 211 meetings per year. This is where he's going to get to his million dollars in three years, which is his big goal that he, that he claims. So 211 meetings per year. It's a lot of meetings, bro. Like, I don't know if it takes [15:14] Justin: him to do that. [15:14] JD: That's what I. Well, I understand. [15:16] Justin: Nine hours. [15:17] JD: Okay, so he hires people, Justin. So, so, okay, so we can give him that. Like he's sitting people in chairs that are calling. [15:24] Mark: I think, how do you hire people if you don't have any revenue? [15:28] JD: Well, you had a business. People invest in, bring money in. That's a question for human interests and guideline, Mark. [15:36] Mark: So I'm staying out of that. [15:38] JD: So he is an entrepreneur in the sense that he's hiring people and I'm actually a fan of that. So let's assume he puts people in chairs and they make the nine hour calls and get the meetings and he gets 211 meetings. Think about your calendar for a second. Like that's. And I realize we work in zoom these days, so maybe I'm being an old fuddy daddy. That's a lot of meetings anyways, if you follow that math. And it's all in the article, so I won't go through it. You know, after three years, if he closes at 15%, he can get to a million dollars in revenue. Well, sorry, Stephen, I'm being an. He actually wrote me today because he saw that we were going to talk about him. He goes, hey, thanks for, you know, talking about what I'm doing. I'm like, I don't think you should say thank you yet till I finish talking about you. No, I think he's a good dude and I appreciate him putting it out there. But let's see, he posted in January and that he's had 35 meetings set so far through this cold calling and cold emailing, mostly cold calling. And I did the math and I'm like, okay, so has he closed five? That would be his, like 20 or whatever. And then I saw a post just recently, he's like, he's closed one plan at 2.7 million, which has 7K in revenue and he's 23 weeks in. So I'm like, I don't know, Stephen. Do you know what he says, Mark, on all his posts, like almost all his posts, he says everything works. Nothing works. [17:02] Mark: Well, Right? [17:04] JD: Well, clearly. [17:05] Mark: Okay, can we, can we admit one thing? That not in, in today's day and age, right? What are people obsessed with? Content. Content, content, content. [17:20] JD: Okay. [17:20] Mark: This dude is consistent with putting out content, right. He's documenting something without. There could be a bigger end result here than just building a three year practice to get to a million bucks. Right. He could be also building a number of different lines of doing things, including. No, I, I, I'm, I'm making an assumption. [17:44] JD: You're right. You're correct. So he's selling. If you go to stephenwilkinson.com he's selling his scripts in his process for doing. [17:54] Mark: But I wasn't even going there. I'm thinking like long term, right? Somebody catches onto this and sees what he's doing, how he's doing it, and tries to monetize that in a different way. Maybe not necessarily the Cold calling thing, the shtick, right. It's, it becomes something else. It becomes a fascination to some, I don't know, make a movie, write a book, do some crazy shit. I'm not saying it's going to go [18:17] Chad: that far, but I'm saying like, once people are watching. You're right, Mark. Once people are watching it, it opens up different avenues. And that avenue may be an advisory practice. It may be him choosing to join a larger firm. It may be him getting clients. I don't know as a client, if I looked at what he's doing, I'd be like, that's advisor I want to work with. [18:37] Mark: I don't want to be a part of this. [18:40] JD: I think it'd be, I, I, it's funny you say that, Chad. I had that same thought of like, I hope his prospects aren't watching his journey online. And maybe I'm being old school again here because I think to be like, what your, your whole focus is on how many clients you can bring in based on a algebraic equation based on how many calls you have people making from your office. Like, then this brings up the next point, by the way. Let's say you are successful because let's, let's stop, start focusing less on Stephen and less and more on his approach. [19:10] Mark: Right? [19:10] JD: Yeah, let's, let's say you are successful and you do win 30 plans in year one. And because I think to get to his number, you got to get to about a hundred plans, his goals. So you get 30 in year one and 30 in year two. You, you got 60 plans right now. You're not just going on prospecting meetings. You got to service 60 plans. Now maybe his, his argument back to me is, remember jd, I'm an entrepreneur. I'll hire people. [19:38] Chad: I got people by that. [19:39] JD: Yeah, I'll have them do those things. But anyways, I think the jury's still out on this whole thing because the takeaway is coming in. [19:45] Chad: The big takeaway I took from all of that and I've been following on LinkedIn as well, is, is he is right. Many things work. Nothing really works well. If I'm building a practice, I'm not building it off cold calling. I would think in terms of the things that are not working well, that's on the bottom rung of what's not working well. And I've been there. Justin, you and I have both been there. When we were selling alarm systems and alarming, you started making us try to cold call businesses. It is horrible. It is horrible. I did it when I joined Plan Design Consultants. I started cold calling. [20:21] Mark: Chad, where did you, where did you sell alarm systems from? [20:25] Chad: From a office? [20:27] Mark: No, like, what was the company alarming you? Damn, I thought you were covered. Justin, where'd you work? [20:33] Chad: No, we, we were authorized. We're authorized dealers, Mark. [20:40] JD: I think even that's, I think that's why this type of article and this approach is interesting, Chad, is people, people always look at cold calling as like, oh, no, I wouldn't do that. And he's trying to say, look, don't, don't shirk it, like it's a numbers game. If you're willing to put in the hard yards, you can actually get these types of results. Now he's getting the meetings. [21:06] Chad: It's. [21:06] JD: I'm assuming he's going to get the closes because I believe in his 20% close rate. [21:10] Chad: And I think he's probably great just based upon his skill set and what he's done on Linked and the conversations I've kind of seen him have. I imagine he's wonderful once he sits in front of a client. But the example I think of when I eyeball this strategy would be like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build a new house. And instead of getting an excavator out there to dig the house, I'm gonna use a shovel. And you're damn right I'm gonna get it done. That basement will be dug, that house will have a hole to be, to be built in. That is not the most efficient way for me to do it though. [21:41] JD: Fair enough, fair enough. But it's efficient for him in that he's hiring people to do it. Right. [21:48] Chad: Just buy leads. [21:49] Justin: Is it efficient though? [21:50] Chad: Just buy leads? [21:51] JD: Well, I think that's what he's done. I think in his brain, in his brain he thought, why would I pay for the leads if I could basically make my own lead generating company and then get my own lead generation? [22:01] Justin: But if he could have gotten there a lot quicker. [22:05] Chad: He's also not quantifying as, as I think Tony said in the chat bar, like the time and research and 50000 [22:12] Mark: and finding, giving us the, the music to wrap it up, all of those things. [22:18] JD: I will back that up with some other things we learned though, because in their article, Brian says that Alex Astley talked at some big conference, that he still makes calls to key prospects that he's interested in. And then somewhat related, but not really, but Jeannie Fisher, when she was. Jeannie Sutton, when she was on the show with us, said that she still finds Prospects in her geographical area and door knocks and comes into the reception area and drops off like gifts on certain holidays for prospects of hers. [22:48] Justin: Yeah, for 14 hours a day. [22:50] JD: So those are also kind of shoveling methods, as Chad puts it, that, you know, big successful advisors do use. So I don't know, 60% of the time it works. It's not working for Steven right now, in my opinion. No offense, Stephen, I know you listen to this, but I can't wait to hear from you when you've actually closed some business because that's the actual goal of all this stuff. [23:12] Mark: But at the same time, you have to, I mean, I'm gonna go the opposite and just commend him to say no one else would be willing to do what he's doing and put his name on the line and be putting this on camera. So I again, I'm just saying we're all along for the ride with win or lose for him, but takes a lot of guts to do that. A lot. [23:30] Chad: Yeah, yeah. [23:31] JD: I love the transparency of it all. The kind of open door Chad bales [23:34] Chad: right when my dog locked herself in the garage. [23:38] JD: Next segment was Chad set this up for us. And you ran out the thing. The national association of Plan Advisors Summit, third party administration panel. Chad emailed me. He's been working on this with some of his peers, other people in the industry, and he wanted to talk about it here. Chad set this up for us. What's going on here? What do you want to discuss? [24:02] Chad: Two things. I wanted to give some pump up to the national association of Plan Advisors in their annual conference. It's a good one. [24:08] JD: You Brown. [24:09] Chad: It's a good one. It's a good one. But like with any conference, what they're running into right now is okay, we can get people to come because they know they're going to get some nuggets and it's going to be fun and after hours is awesome. But how do we get people to actually attend specific sessions? And so we were going through a couple of different thoughts and it made me, made me think some of what we've done in the past. But specific to this event, it's early April, it's in San Diego. Good people speaking, what I've been working on for the last year or so. And yeah, Amanda's in here, she's been part of it. And it started, JD with a conversation we had on the show, which is really, if you are a bundled provider, you are a third party administrator too. And that concept that advisors think that it is either a Third party administrator or it's bundled. And bundled doesn't seem to have compliance in that conversation. It's just about record keeping. And nobody ever talks or compares one bundled compliance services to another bundled compliance services, but they'll compare a third party administrator to another third party administrator. And so we started going down that path of really making sure people understand that bundled providers are compliance administrators too. And where it has led us now is to creating a really efficient way of comparing compliance services. You know, what do people, what do these compliance arms actually do for the client? And quantifying it through a survey, a [25:33] JD: checklist or a survey that you would ask of a third party administrator or a bundled compliance department. Like how do you handle these? [25:40] Chad: When you're an advisor and you're deciding who you're partnering with and who's going to do a good job for your client, how do you figure out? The record keeping side is fairly easy. What are the investments available? What's the user interface? What's the tech like? What service will I get? But when you look at the compliance services, it's kind of difficult to figure out who's doing what. And so it's a bunch of compliance nerds that put together this survey that essentially asks the questions that you would want to know of another TPA we've talked about. Say it. [26:08] Justin: Yeah, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. [26:10] Mark: I don't have buttons. So there you go. We've talked about literally the first acronym all show. [26:15] Justin: No JD had a certified public public accountant. [26:21] JD: Samson chimes in for the best comment of the night. Anyways, Sam, so we had a group chat and we're going to get the guideline. Chief Executive Officer is going to join our show and I think it was Mark, was Mark or Justin that said you should do a tall can talks Samson vs Kevin Busk, the busque, whatever his last name is. Guideline. Anyways, I thought that was funny. Okay, where were we? Oh, all those questions on that thing for the compliance administrator, whether it's a third party administrator or bundled, these are questions that really never get asked of administrators. Not that often. Some of them do. Like how many people are on your staff, how experienced are you? Whatever. But looks like you all have gone deeper into the weeds with important questions that should be asked of compliance administrators. And I agree with you. I think it's really funny that when you choose a record keeper, you have all these concerns and questions as an advisor or a plan sponsor. Right? How do they handle this? What types of investments? Are they proprietary? What's the fee? Structure, is there revenue sharing? Is it like you have all these deep questions about how you perceive a good record keeper to be or something that you want to align your business with as an advisor, but yet you don't ask the bundled provider all these types of questions. [27:43] Chad: Yeah. [27:44] JD: Nor do you tend to ask the third party administrator. So good for you. [27:48] Chad: And especially in the larger market. Right. That's the hard part for me to stomach is, is we know that larger plans tend to only go bundled and when they run the rfi, the request for information, I will take it. There's very, very rarely are there questions around compliance work. And so by the way, I should mention the, the group that has created this will be at that conference. There'll be a panel. It'll be interesting. But the big part of, of what we wanted to accomplish is really a Q A on the back end. Damn it. That's two. [28:24] Justin: Well, you didn't give this, give it, [28:26] Chad: give advisors an opportunity to really poke a group of third party administrators. And I think the way we're going to set it up is one of us, one of them will behave like a bundled provider, one of them will behave like a volume, low, low service, garbage in, garbage out, TPA and one will behave like a high end compliance administrator. And questions will be asked and one of them will say we do that or we don't do that. And it'll be interesting to see which advisors think is who. [28:54] JD: I, I don't want to be as negative as Tony. Tony says who would fill out a form like that? I would say Tony requests for proposals for record keepers. And things are far more complicated than this form if you take a look at it. I did, I did breeze my way through it. And they're all fairly simple questions to ask as a, as a compliance administrator. [29:20] Chad: I mean asking compliance administrators to fill it out. That's exactly who will fill it out. [29:24] JD: Yeah, you're not trying to, you're not sending this to a client. They can't answer these questions. However. [29:31] Mark: And Now I saw 20, 23 like the year of the survey and shit. [29:37] JD: However, I will say that as I went through a lot of those questions, much like a request for proposal, some of those questions you could answer yes to and there's, there's flavors of yes. [29:50] Chad: But then we absolutely knew that. [29:52] JD: I knew, you know that and if I was to force you to then dig into those flavors, then Tony gets even more upset because your, your thing looks even worse. Right. [30:00] Chad: And that was the whole point. And Amanda will know better than I do. Because we've gone through this a few times. But Tony, this is, this is something that can be done via fillable PDF, but the goal is to put this online. But we're talking about people that have day jobs that are very busy trying to do this for the better of the industry. [30:21] JD: To me, what I, what I like, I'd like to see it evolve a little differently where that exists, the way you guys worked hard on it. But then the real emotional state that has to happen is the financial advisor has to really understand each of those questions and what the purpose of asking those questions are. And then to my kind of flavors of yes statement, you could ask, you can, you can probe a little deeper. I hate it when I say that you get broke. Yeah, you did. And, and, and, and ask more detailed questions because you understand why you're asking the question in the first place. And then you become a more educated, more experienced expert in the field of compliance and administration so you can vet out vendors for your clients and feel proud about recommending them to them. But we've talked about this before, but it's been a while. But no one's, no one's really doing that. And I say no one. I kind of mean no one. Like, I mean no one I haven't seen a lot of. [31:22] Chad: There's one advisor that sits on our panel and she's doing it. Yeah, but her background is in our world and that's why she's doing it. [31:30] JD: We will move on but good. Are you sitting on this, this presentation chat? Are you part of it? [31:35] Chad: No, that's. I, I kind of got in trouble a little bit this week with Nevin Adams because he asked if I was going to be there. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not, not going to that conference. We have so much travel lined up. I can't be gone another stretch. [31:47] JD: Yeah, you pulled a little retireholic celebrity on them. The, the classic. Hey, Amanda, if you can't pay us to be there, we can't be there. Okay, last. Hey, Fast. Vince Morris and the peeps at One Digital are still doing their thing. [32:10] Mark: People spending some money. [32:12] JD: That's right. They're bending, still buying shops. I kind of felt like this had all stopped. But you know, I'm a, I'm a big sleuth of the 401k wire now, the secret Society webpage I like to go to, and the title of the article is one digital buys a 500 million assets under management Sunshine State Shop. That's Florida, right? Vince Morris President of Retirement Wealth Vision at One Digital and Troy Tumman, the president. [32:43] Mark: Careful Brandon, don't show these things. This is secret. [32:46] Justin: That's like 3.5 billion in that one acronym. I don't want to say what. [32:54] Chad: Yeah. [32:55] Mark: Total for One Digital. [32:57] Justin: Is that what they paid isn't like seven times eight times typically or. [33:00] JD: That's not what they paid, that's how much they have in assets. [33:04] Chad: That's assets. Oh, revenue. [33:05] Justin: Revenue. Revenue, sir. Yep, yep. Never mind, never mind. [33:08] JD: No, not even revenue, just assets underneath. [33:10] Justin: No, no, no. I'm talking to State the ebitda. [33:12] Chad: He's talking about the mult. [33:13] JD: Yeah, but we have no idea what they paid. They don't. They never disclose that for us. You gotta call Dick Darian after hours to get that kind of information. Just kidding. He doesn't spill that to me. No. So it's a. It's a 25 year old firm. 500 million and I'll drink from my Jack Daniels mix here. 500 million in AUM and serves more than. [33:37] Mark: Wait, Jay, hold on. Jay, what is that? [33:40] JD: It's Jack Daniels mixed with a little vitamin C water that looks. [33:45] Mark: That looks cloudy and weird. I don't. I don't know. [33:49] JD: Cancel each other vitamin. That's. [33:52] Chad: But at least it's better. Nothing. That's what I laugh because I'm doing vodka and Gatorade electrolyte tonight. [33:57] JD: Same kind of thing. Same kind of thing with you guys. Hey, this firm here's the one interesting thing. One I think it is interesting that Vince is still buying. Of course that's what they're doing. But it's interesting to see to this firm is not just a retirement plan only firm. And as far as I can tell, part of the deal was also their wealth management side which is for 270 households. That's what the wealth managers call their clients households. So again, convergence, people. Convergence. Insert Wu Tang money clip. If we ever still had it anymore. I don't know if we use that, but there you go. So. [34:40] Mark: Man, this show really sucks without production. [34:47] JD: Blah blah blah. Advisors still struggling with public perception. Plan Advisor magazine. Plan Advisor magazine came out with this article. Let's find it here, shall we? Panel false ideas about financial advisement. Maybe. [35:10] Chad: Is that the right article? [35:11] JD: Yeah, maybe. Limiting diversity. [35:13] Mark: Who can guess my favorite quote from the article? Justin, tell us. [35:17] JD: Yeah, if. [35:19] Justin: I know. [35:21] Mark: I just love if you just. It's just great. [35:23] JD: It's just you don't have to be [35:24] Mark: a man, you don't have to be a math genius to be in financial Services. Bam. And I said, you got four people right here who can vouch for that. So thanks for saying it. [35:36] Chad: What are you saying? [35:37] Justin: I was pretty good at math. [35:38] JD: Oh, Chad, shut up. [35:40] Mark: Just because you can use a spreadsheet doesn't mean you're good with numbers. [35:43] Justin: This guy used to fall asleep in class and still get straight. [35:45] Mark: Yeah, come on, man. [35:48] JD: You. [35:48] Mark: You play a good game here. But let's be honest. Like, we all. All of us rely on the things that help us with numbers. [35:56] JD: To me, this article starts with one point, and then. [36:01] Mark: Shut up. [36:01] JD: Devin kind of heads to another point. It's talking about diversity in financial services and trying to, like, I don't think they use this word, but, like, recruit, like, people of color and, you know, more females and all that kind of stuff to financial services. So we're not all a bunch of white males doing the job. And what they learned was some of these people didn't want to be in this industry because the way they thought about this industry was this bunch of crooks that, like, don't help people and just make money. [36:31] Chad: And, you know, the article led you to believe it's not that they don't help people, it's that they only help rich people. That's the way they. They led you. Which I'm not gonna lie, when I stepped into this space, I certainly thought that that was a very true statement. Now, in some ways, guys, let's not lie. It still is. They want assets under management. They want to serve larger households. They charge as a percentage of what they're doing. So of course they want larger accounts. And. And they're going toward people with money and trying to serve them. They're not. Nobody wants to build a model around servicing the person that makes 35 grand a year. [37:08] JD: But even though they need it, but [37:10] Chad: we want to use tech to do it. [37:11] JD: But don't forget, yes, we do care about the participant, because we're. Now. We want to monetize them, too, Chad. The little guys. We're trying to monetize them, too. I'm trying to make a joke, but. So I just think the relevance here is what we have talked about over the years, which. And we can't forget as an industry, which is we might kind of, in our own little world here, in our own little retireholic chat bar bubble, think, like, oh, these are great people, right? The Janus Stouts, the people that are here, the Webbies, the Samsons, the. You know, the list goes on and on and on, right? Of, like, people who love 401k love what they're doing and want to make an impact and want to help people. And I'm not trying to, I mean that. But the outside world still doesn't see our industry that way. And so we need to be smart about that and we need to understand and this just should be from the top down. Like I'd love to see the companies like Voya and Empower and Fidelity start to understand that a little more. Starting to kind of loosen the buttons a little bit, loosen up the tie, kind of see their marketing and branding be a little more friendly again. [38:20] Mark: I agree with you jd but the crazy part is it sounds like there's a bigger problem here is that the perception from people who could be potential candidates who are probably well fit to do these types of jobs don't want to for that reason. Even though there's a demographic that they could serve that would be better approached by them, they don't want to be associated. They don't want to be associated with it because they, there's a bad connotation there. So when I read that, I sat back for a second, really let it sink in. I was like, all I could say was flop. Like, like LeBron James said the other night in his acceptance speech that stupid on court thing they did, he just says fuck guys. Like that's what's going on here. It's a bigger issue. [39:06] JD: But if we are aware of that issue and we start to shift our. I'm going to say marketing and branding. But what I mean is if we start exposing to the public. Hang on. If we start exposing to the public the good things that we do instead of focusing on like we have for the last 15 years. I know way, the way it's being [39:29] Mark: done right now is just so shitty the way they are doing it. [39:33] JD: Yeah, it's so it needs to shift. [39:34] Mark: It looks way too much like you're just trying too hard because you know, you've. The last 10 years have been shitty. [39:41] Chad: Let's hold on, let's point out the obvious here. We're talking about individual perception, human perception. [39:47] Mark: Right? [39:47] Chad: Human perception is not based on tech. And if we're, if we're talking about the average working American, they're not working at a 5 person, 10 person company where they might see the financial advisor. They're working at a large company that has 3,000 to 50,000 employees. It has a very large plan and the financial advisor is never going to walk, walk a step in the areas in which they're working. It's going to be tech that embraces them and tech embracing them and us servicing them as an industry is going to help, but it's not going to change the perception. Jd There needs to be human interaction to change the perception. [40:24] JD: Well, I agree and I disagree with that. If you watch like try to pay attention to like financial ads on TV these days, you're starting to see a slow shift where they're trying to humanize their clients and they show things of like a client reaching their dreams. Like, like work with Edward Jones. I don't know if it's Edward Jones. When I actually saw. And they show like this person, she's a 58 year old woman who wants to, you know, sale someday or have this small flower business and the advisor helps her get through. [40:58] Chad: Listen to what you just said. We're talking about reaching the average worker that makes 35 to 60 grand a year in the U.S. they're not trying to open a flower business or sale in retirement. No, they're trying to actually pay medical expenses in retirement. [41:12] JD: But my, I thought we were talking [41:13] Mark: about people getting into working for financial services, not retirees. [41:17] Chad: We're talking about the relationship. Yeah, those two things. [41:20] JD: The reason they don't want to get into working is because they think we're doing a shit job or they don't want to be. We don't do good, therefore we need to change our outward appearance to show people the good that we are doing because we are doing good. And so Chad, regardless of whether it's tech solving. [41:35] Chad: I agree with you. [41:36] JD: Or a person solving it, we as an industry need to shift and say, look everyone, this is the good that we do. And I think for the last 15 years that wasn't what we talked about. We've all heard this. We talked about fees, we talked about funds, we talked about fiduciary solutions. We scared people and how hard it was to have a plan. We told people they were getting ripped off and their feet, this is how we sold to our prospects. We told them they're getting ripped off and their fees were too high and they came to us they'd be lower. And we did all this stuff that created the very perception that we have as opposed to running around saying, look, we want to help the people. We want to help them with their financial literacy. We want to help them with their wellness, their retirement readiness. We want to help them live a better, more stress free life when it comes to money. This is what the retirement plan advisor that offers their solutions through the workplace plan should be focused on, on doing and presenting themselves as and the industry as a whole should also fall into step with this. The void is empowers or whomever and we should all be aware of that. That's why I bring this up is we nothing will change if we don't take steps to change it. [42:46] Chad: And we are all on board with. I speak for the guys, I think I would. We're all on board with that. I know I am. I know we've been doing it as a group, as a community for a long time and I think as a whole we are making that change. I just think your comment of we need to show them and doing so by talking to the committee members about the things we're doing is not going to accomplish that. It has to be more grassroots. [43:11] JD: Right. [43:12] Chad: We have to find a way to personally help those people that are the quiet majority. [43:17] JD: So to me it's just that it's that label of what does a workplace advisor do. And I think if you would ask me 10 years ago I would have said they sit with a committee and make big important financial decisions. But nowadays I'd like to say oh well they, they cultivate a tech stack, work with the committee to work with the participants to deliver through tech, financial, wellness, retirement readiness planning at scale to all these people. And there's a way, and by the way marketing and branding can do wonders. And so it's a matter of like if they, if those people see ads on tv, if those people hear from their employers, if they see it's about the messaging in those. That very tech that you're talking about, Chad has to have that kind of unified message of us doing good. That's all. That's all. [44:09] Chad: I love, I love and I'm about to send this even though it's not finished. But I love what guy just said in the chat bars. We need to collect email addresses from every employee and that gives us an opportunity to directly communicate with them versus just using tech through login. But here's my fear. I would love to know what the open rate is of communications that go to employees that aren't in their inbox every day. Like we are someone that's out in the field, someone that's working a, a build line. Some, some, someone that is in construction. It's minimal to none. They're not checking their emails. So I'm not sure that. Well, I'd like to say that's probably the next best step for industry. I don't think it's going to get us to where we all want to [44:49] Justin: Be remember we record keepers request that stuff on the census collection too from the start. So it's there. [44:55] JD: Well, and keep in mind that that is the modern world. Like any good, any good advisor. [44:59] Mark: Again, it's, it's a, it's a step by step process. Great. Chad, send an email. Wonderful. Open rate. Someone just said 0.39. I don't know if they actually know that. It's probably less than that, but. Okay. Is that email written in a way that a common person can understand? [45:19] JD: Probably not. [45:20] Mark: Right? So now we have another problem. Communication method, the language used. [45:24] Chad: There's, there's these, these are the things that are changing though, Mark. This is good. [45:29] Mark: Disclosures that are under all this fine print that just takes up 80% of the email. It's like, come on man, can we just simplify? [45:38] Justin: What do you guys think the percentage of advisors are that are actually doing that? I mean we work with a lot of advisors unfortunately that just set it up and forget about it and let it get paid. [45:46] Chad: Yeah. We're in a different segment though in terms of the population that's being served. I think on the larger plans, the vast majority of them have wellness tools and financial planning tools that, that are doing these things. [45:59] JD: We, we've given it a lot of crap over the years, but this is kind of like showing where wellness readiness planning at the workplace can start to change this a little bit. I agree with Justin. It historically hasn't been something that's happening, but that needle is moving. It's definitely moving in the up market. Usually things that are in the upmarket will trickle down into the small in the micro market and it's going to take time. And don't forget these tech stacks and these stuff like it's, it is technology that's going to come in and will technology gather emails from these people to deliver them financial planning. And mind you, this is happening all around us like, like who's the. Damn it. Who's the brothers that we've had, the Aaron brothers that we have on the show are big on that. Yeah, are big on that. It's happening everywhere. It's happening everywhere and it's going to continue to happen. So maybe it's the very wellness readiness stuff that, that Mark boohooed is going to be the answer to Mark's dreams here because you know, Mark wants to help the every guy so it could all come. [47:04] Mark: Don't say guy. The every person, man. [47:06] JD: Every person. Sorry. [47:08] Mark: Shame on you. You're not even there yet. [47:10] Justin: Jd. [47:10] JD: I know, I'm not there yet. I'm so. Hashtag sexist. Okay. Hey, a new. A new Nevin and Fred, you guys. Fred who? [47:24] Justin: How is it you got. [47:25] JD: I'm gonna be totally honest. I'm not gonna kiss ass here. [47:28] Mark: A retire a retired guy and then some dude. [47:31] JD: Like the banter between these two is getting better. Every episode there's a real relaxed comedy, a back and forth of laughter at times, using some slang on different stuff, poking fun at each other. Like, listen to the newest episode. It's phenomenal. So I love their whole kind of shtick. It's getting really, really good now. What did they talk about? They're talking about Secure 2.0 and they're talking about some of the mistakes that have happened in it. I was gonna have Brandon play an audio clip. I don't think you're able to pull that. Brandon, give me the thumbs up or thumbs down because one of the things. No way. Too bad. Okay, let's see if I can recreate it. It's, it's. It's about three quarters of the way through and never nast spread about automatic enrollment. You know, the mandatory automatic enrollment and, and how it's not effective until 2025. But companies that have been in existence for three years and have 10 or more employees have to have automatic enrollment in with their plan right now. Fred is very concerned about this gap time from now to 2025. And he doesn't believe that because it's not mandatory. He thinks a lot of plans will not put it in place now. And then we're going to have a show. My words, not his. As we get closer to on 25, he expands on that and he does a great job. So please everyone go and listen. And he goes, furthermore, there's, there's like, there's, there's like moving deadlines for this stuff depending upon who you are. Because if you go from nine employees to 12 employees, then you've got to put in place your auto enroll the following year. So then that's a whole new kind of deadline window that's happening. Same thing true of the three years in business where you'd have to do it. So there's all these kind of moving things. And basically the worry war in Frederich is saying, I feel like this is going to go wrong on a lot of levels. And so his advice is twofold. One, and I think, Chad, you guys, do you guys agree with this right now? I mean, you're selling plans right now. Are you putting in automatic enrollment? Every time I should ask, I'll ask, I'll ask nakedly in front of the whole audience here. Should, should I be doing that more on a high level administrative thing and saying look, every plan that comes in as a startup, we're, we're doing it this way. Like this is a great conversation to have. What, what are we doing right now there? [50:09] Justin: We're, we're definitely discussing it but I'm not writing it into plan docs yet. You would think that's. Is that going to be an interim amendment that comes out that's just going to be blanket across all docs and kind of a little segue here. Thought came to my mind when you started doing that. What about all the part time employees that need to be made of, you [50:26] JD: know, [50:28] Justin: secure 1.0 that need to have access to the plant too. [50:32] Chad: Are they going to need to be automatic enrolled? [50:35] JD: I'm sorry I was looking at guys comments there and I lost just in second half of that. [50:40] Justin: Remember from 1.0 part timers of 500 more. [50:44] JD: Yeah. [50:44] Justin: Are they gonna have to be automatically enrolled down under this provision too? [50:47] JD: Yeah, for sure. [50:48] Justin: Jesus Christ. But they didn't apply to, you know [50:50] JD: they weren't because it's 5,000 or more. The 5,000 or more is the rule here with this one. Right. That's what makes them an employee to get to the 10 over. Yeah. [50:59] Chad: So those are things line up to answer your question jd, if it's a plan that we're not trying to implement something, something along the lines of a strategic safe harbor to allow the owners to shelter knowing that we're going to have lower participation amongst the staff, then we're not doing auto enroll. If it's a plan in which we have a non elective in place, a plan in which there is no safe harbor or they're not, they're not necessarily matching, then I'm pushing auto enroll on all of those groups. [51:27] JD: So it's not. [51:27] Chad: I can't blanket statement, it's right for everybody. While it's not enforced, I'm not putting it in on everybody because there's plenty of clients that it doesn't fit for right now. [51:36] JD: Mr. Re says you should do it for everyone in this podcast. If we're not putting in right now for someone that's going to need it in 2025, then that responsibility is going to fall on us to go through our database and find out what clients had their plan set up on December 29th or after of 2022 and are coming into the 2025 year as a startup and we'll need to add automatic enrollment, and we'll be having to do that sometime next year. If you think about that across the country, that's a lot of going down. So we'll see who's. I know plan design consultants can handle that. It's an extra task. It's not something that we've done historically as a third party administrator. Look at a subset of clients to figure out who has to. I mean, I guess I should take that back. Certain amendments apply to certain subsets of our clients and others don't. But usually that's like a 401k versus 403b or a defined benefit versus non defined benefit. So this will be a little niche within our clients that we have to find out who those are. Now here's the next one. The Think about the fucking his. And I know he's being an ERISA attorney, I'll drink. But the nuances of the. Of the three years in business and or worse the nine employees to 10 employees, like, is that something that's in our system where we're like, oh, they had eight employees in 2023, and therefore they didn't have automatic enrollment. But, oh, it's 2026 and now they have 15 employees. We've got to go to them in 2000, before 2027, and let them know that they have to amend their plan for automatic enrollment. What the shit's getting a little messy. [53:25] Chad: It's not. It's not getting a little messy. It is messy. [53:29] Mark: Yeah. [53:29] JD: Yeah. [53:29] Chad: So much of this is messy. I. I was speaking with an advisor today and I essentially said, you want me to do a, you know what you need to know with secure 2.0. And he's like, oh, we've got all the updates that have come in. Like we. All the record keepers are doing them. We've tuned in and I said, so be honest. Do you feel like what you need to know for your actual practice is like, absolutely not. [53:51] Mark: Some of the webinars have been disastrous. [53:54] Chad: I know. And most of the time they're trying to. They're trying to tell you everything instead of teaching you what is actually relevant to the core. [54:01] JD: Yeah. [54:04] Chad: And so it's a mess. [54:05] JD: Too many. There's another thing. There's too much sign up for all [54:08] Mark: of them just to see the show. [54:09] JD: We don't need all these secure 2.0 summaries out there. Webinars. Let's go to Guy Hawker here on this stuff. He was earlier said, I thought you [54:20] Mark: were like going to a camera and how to Read it. Come on. Let's go. [54:24] JD: Guy not in the field tonight. He said you can't set 100% of them up like Mr. Rishi wants us to do because he's saying some of the record keepers aren't prepped due to them. I. I didn't think that most record keepers can handle auto enroll and auto increase. Right. But. But you definitely have to worry. Gone are the days of immediate eligibility. Right? [54:49] Mark: Right. [54:49] Justin: Well, you would think, but can you really get rid of it? [54:52] JD: No, no, no. [54:53] Chad: I. I don't think goes immediate eligibility. [54:58] JD: You cannot be a startup plan and have immediate eligibility right now because it's impossible to have auto enroll through your record keeper. You could do it on your own. [55:07] Chad: You do it on your own, you give them the automatic enrollment notice and you auto enroll them in the first payroll. I think that's cleaner than trying. So you know, record keepers typically want 90 days of eligibility service with at least monthly entry in order to track. And. And usually when we're doing auto enroll, it's because it's a plan with. With no company contributions and they want to let people in right away. I won't do a 30 day, 60 day auto enroll plan. I'll tell them it either needs to be immediate or you need to let the record keeper support you with their tech. And it needs to be 90 days with monthly entry to me. [55:39] JD: I would without. You know, when's the last time you sold a plan, jd? But I would say like I'm thinking gone are the days of that stuff because I don't want a plan sponsor to be responsible for automatic enrollment. That's. That's a shit show waiting to happen automatically. [55:56] Chad: So time out. [55:57] JD: Time out. [55:57] Chad: Time out. You're the one that always fights me on the payroll integration. Without payroll integration, what does it matter who's responsible for it? Plan sponsor still has to make it happen. [56:04] JD: But they're not. [56:05] Chad: Even if the record keeper tracks it, tracks it and then notifies the plan sponsor, the employee still has to be auto enrolled in the deduction withheld from payroll. So the plan sponsor still has to take the action. Does it matter if they do it first payroll or take the direction from the right. [56:19] JD: But the text there, Chad. They're getting the notification, they're getting the email from Voya empower saying these are the people that you need to enroll at these percentages. You know that that's what that text are for. [56:31] Chad: Yeah, but if it's every person from date of higher, then you don't need to be told it's Every person you hire, unless they tell you they date, they're opting out. [56:39] JD: No, like what about 60 days or 30 days? [56:42] Chad: Well that's what I'm saying that you're saying gone is the day of immediate. And I'm saying it doesn't need. [56:46] JD: Sorry, I'm not speaking. I was just saying the 30 and the sixth year, whatever for sure I'm [56:53] Chad: in with you there. [56:54] JD: And, and we don't. And I do have clients. We have clients right now that have auto enroll and they don't use the technology. And usually when I hear that my stomach drops. And the next few questions I have with them, I quickly find out that this is falling on the wayside and [57:11] Chad: not being the harder the auto escalation too. Everybody fights me on these auto features because I know how beneficial they are. But if a client or tech can't handle it appropriately, it's a nightmare. Every, every person I have ever asked in this space. Not other third party administrators but. [57:29] JD: But we'll do it live thing. [57:35] Chad: And I talk about auto escalation. Their thought is you auto escalate every single person that is under a certain default rate. And the truth is no, you auto escalate people that haven't made an election. And so if I'm auto enrolled but then I change my election from 5% to 8% then I no longer get auto escalated. [57:55] JD: Yeah, you're not. [57:56] Chad: There's no. I've never ran into an advisor or a client that understands that. [57:59] JD: Yeah, right. [58:00] Chad: And so you have to embrace technology. [58:03] JD: It's so funny is that when we were just hypothesizing about this with Secure 2.0, I was kind of like ah, whatever, you know, that's great. Automatic enrollment. Now I honestly know that it's happening live and we have to deal with it. You were kind of saying this before, Chad. I think you are. I think this is a nightmare for a company that has 15 employees, that has 20 employees and there's a lot of them out there. I think this is a fucking nightmare forcing them to do this thing. And I think that. [58:36] Chad: But they're doing it on the state mandates already. So I think that's why we didn't feel too bad pushing it in. I think this is the bridge. [58:43] JD: There's going to be a lot of mistakes. I guess I should get on the positive side and say it's probably a great thing for quality compliance administrators to provide value. Notice how I didn't know. [58:55] Chad: Remember what I said 5 years ago JD when I told you part of Our business development had to be us going into fixing these mistakes. [59:06] Mark: There needs to be a lessening of the problems and allowing more screw ups to just go, ah, you get a free pass for a bit or something. Yeah. [59:18] JD: Wow. [59:18] Mark: If we're gonna do create all this madness and all this mess, at least do a service on the other side. [59:24] JD: You just inspired me for a new segment. Instead of like rogue guys drunk stock tips, we should have robe Guy, the ERISA attorney. Where. Where you're just like, you solve people's problems or like, hey, we have late. We had late deposits for the last three years. We forgot to fix Fowler 5500. And you're just. And you'll be the judge and jury. And you're like, oh, don't worry about it. Two. [59:46] Mark: Yeah. Three Hail Marys and a shot of Jack. You're out of here. [59:52] JD: Okay. Last week we did not. We didn't get our prizes to our chat bar champion. [1:00:00] Mark: Well done, JD. I don't say we on that. [1:00:04] JD: Okay. I did not. The surf was pumping. Things got kind of delayed, but we delivered today. Okay. And last. That was for Guy Hawker, who is the winner from two weeks ago. And we're gonna go. [1:00:18] Mark: We're behind that far. Look at this comment. [1:00:21] Justin: Yeah. [1:00:21] JD: What did he say? Oh, my, my. My wife was very surprised. Okay, we'll go through what Guy got and then Webby won last week. But I forget, Webby works for a ass broker dealer that doesn't let him get any gifts. So he can't. So he wrote me, he goes, I take it. I said, okay, well then you just nominate someone and he nominated Shannon. Wait, hold on. [1:00:42] Mark: If we're friends outside of this, If a friend sends a friend a gift. Webby, come on, man. [1:00:50] JD: Mark, just so you know, you're not friends. You're an industry wholesaler in a suit and tie. [1:00:57] Mark: I don't. I don't work in this industry. I just have friends. [1:01:01] JD: Let's see. We are now using. Oh, geez. Where. Where do I look to see what I sent? I gotta go off screen. I can't see all you guys right now. That's okay. Yes. Two weeks ago, Guy Hawker was champion. We're trying a new thing, right? We. We went to the old instacart. And to my joy and my surprise, I saw I could go shopping at Walmart by a guy's house. So I took off to Walmart. And here we go. He. Guy was delivered chicken at the sea. Tuna Chunk light four pack. Yes. I got him some clear eyes. Drops for redness. Relief, because I'm sensitive to that stuff. When you drink as much as I do, it's nothing better than having a nice fresh Visine or clear eyes, you know, by your sink. So I hope hopefully Guy can enjoy that as well. I got him the pen and gear Zendi stationary the little metal binder clips. He seems like a nerdy kind of third party administration guy. I thought he'd appreciate those little clips. We used to have those around the office. I got him a little notebook, a little composition notebook, that kind of classic one in the black with the white speckles all over it that he could write in notes from retireholics in case he gets hungry. He's got a six pack, Six pack of Oscar Meyer original classic beef uncured Frank's hot dogs, apparently. I got him another. Oh, no, I got buns. Ballpark hot dog buns to go with them. [1:02:33] Mark: Hold on. How many hot dogs are in the pack versus how many buns? [1:02:37] JD: There's looks like six hot dogs and eight buns. [1:02:42] Mark: I think that's always that movie. [1:02:44] JD: You're right. [1:02:44] Chad: Sometimes buns get messed up. [1:02:47] JD: No, sorry, sorry, mark, you're right. 10 hot dogs, eight buns. [1:02:52] Mark: I mean, the, the, the, the. They need to, they need to. See, that's like integration. You need to talk to each other, figure it out. Guys, that's. [1:03:01] JD: That's worse. [1:03:01] Justin: And girls here together. Mark, that's the worst. [1:03:05] JD: I secure 2.0. We got him some pop Tarts. It's the flavor. Frosted strawberry. [1:03:13] Justin: Yeah, that's what it's all about. [1:03:14] JD: Got him some Oscar Meyer bologna bologna, sliced deli sandwich lunch meat. Because, you know, Oscar Meyer is the. Some macaroni and cheese, Kraft brandy, OG Good. [1:03:26] Chad: You did well. [1:03:27] JD: I'll drink for the original gangster comment. [1:03:30] Justin: Raise a hand. Never mind. You said Mac and cheese, right? You say Mac and cheese. Just regular cheese. [1:03:35] JD: Mac and cheese, anyone? [1:03:36] Justin: Chop up the hot dogs and throw them in the Mac and cheese. [1:03:39] JD: Oh, good call. [1:03:41] Chad: Justin also pours ketchup all over and then stirs it up. [1:03:45] JD: Oh, my God. I prefer classier things than what Justin's talking about, which is why I got Guy some Gray Poupon Dijon mustard. He's also. He's also got him some Hidden Valley Easy Squeeze Original ranch salad dressing. Because, you know, ranch goes on everything. You could put ranch on your Mac and cheese and hot dogs and ketchup, Justin. And for after the hot dogs and after the Mac and cheese and all that, I got him some angel soft toilet paper. 12 mega rolls. I got him. [1:04:23] Mark: Yeah, where's the ho ho? [1:04:25] JD: Tom's right. I got him a cool little scrub Daddy scrubber. Like, it's a sponge thing that's got a face on it. Face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [1:04:32] Justin: That guy. Those guys are worth so much money [1:04:34] JD: from our past show. I know there's a lot of debate and controversy around this, but I got him the old dish spray. Right, the. Shh. [1:04:42] Mark: I thought you were gonna say a pregnancy test. [1:04:44] JD: Okay, Mark, you're gonna love this one. Pardon me. Do you have any Gray Poupon? Mark, you're gonna like this one. I got him 200. 200 cotton balls. Mark has a. As a phobia of cotton balls, everybody. If you didn't know that, I won't call the phobia. [1:05:13] Mark: They're just gross. [1:05:14] JD: I got him. Well, you're not supposed to eat them, Mark. I got him some Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Original. You know, just frosted cereal. All right. Sorry, guy. You know, I started to look at condoms, pregnancy tests, things like that. And I started to feel very uncomfortable. Like, should I. Shouldn't I. I didn't. But I went somewhere in between. And I got you direct Sensual massage and play. Two in one. It's a massage gel and a personal lubricant. [1:05:49] Mark: Oh, my gosh. [1:05:51] JD: What the. Well, hey, I stopped. Good one. [1:05:59] Mark: Who did this go to? [1:06:02] JD: Oh, God. I stopped short at the. At the. [1:06:05] Justin: Is that why your wife had so many questions, Guy? [1:06:08] JD: Hang on. I'm sure I'm not done yet. The fun. [1:06:10] Chad: Oh, geez. [1:06:11] JD: I got him some Trace hairspray extra hold. I don't know. A new toothbrush, Colgate Extra Clean soft toothbrush. A good jar. 1.75 ounces. That's not a lot. Maybe it's a small little jar of Vaseline Healing Jelly. The original and last. [1:06:30] Justin: You're gonna be responsible for a divorce one of these days. [1:06:33] JD: Last but not least. We're gonna get sued. I got him some. Come back to the picture so I can see everybody. I got him some Man's. So you can pee in your pants. [1:06:49] Mark: It depends. [1:06:51] JD: I got some diapers. Oh, man. So. [1:06:55] Chad: Hey, guys, think about those ones. [1:06:58] Mark: We're sorry. We're sorry, man. [1:07:01] JD: And then for Shannon, this is a long segment, so. Thank you, Guy. Congratulations to me. [1:07:08] Mark: We're losing people. JD's. [1:07:09] JD: Okay, well, I. I had a. I had, like, eight pounds of different styles of just meat to send to Shannon. S. Words. [1:07:17] Mark: Yeah. [1:07:18] JD: But I couldn't get a hold of her until, like, last year. We are. [1:07:21] Chad: Oops, I crap my pants. [1:07:24] JD: And she's in Cabo, so. Good thing I didn't have eight pounds of meat delivered to her front doorstep. So we'll put that on pause. She text me and said, don't send it, don't send it. So with that, sorry. Yeah. These chopper champion prizes are getting very long winded. But they're fun, right? That's fun. [1:07:42] Chad: They're funny. [1:07:44] Mark: Still haven't asked us for any, like, feedback on these or help on these. [1:07:48] JD: That's true. [1:07:49] Justin: You know why it doesn't need it at this. [1:07:51] JD: I'm always doing it at like 2pm stressed out, trying to get everything done. Your vote for chapter champion this week is whom? Roby. [1:08:00] Mark: Oh. [1:08:01] JD: Who would you like to win diapers there? [1:08:06] Mark: There were some really good ones today with some. I really wish I was more like Chad and took a note from time to time. Very good one liners. That. That came out. Jesus. I'm delaying here because I'm scrolling back through trying to figure out who said what. I love Tony Davis, man. I feel like I laughed out loud a bunch of times because he was saying, yeah, I don't. [1:08:31] JD: Tony. Tony Davis. Okay. Yeah, Justin, [1:08:37] Justin: a good one. Kush, Samson, they were all on point. But I gotta go with Tony. [1:08:40] JD: You're going with Tony. [1:08:41] Justin: Some solid ones. [1:08:43] JD: God, should I lie? [1:08:45] Chad: Tony? Tony had a good night, but he did make my blood boil at one point and I wanted to snap back and I'm thankful that I didn't. So Tony does not get my vote tonight. [1:08:54] Mark: You know, Chad, I will say it's not hard. [1:08:57] Chad: Oh, I know, I know. But I'm pretty good at hiding my. Most of the time. I'm going. I'm going. Kush. Kush had it could. Kush had an exceptional night. [1:09:07] JD: God, that's. That's odd. [1:09:08] Justin: Okay, the one where his kids said something like, I got my left ball and two testicles, something like that, to the response. [1:09:14] Mark: Oh, his kids said that? Yeah. [1:09:15] JD: And by the way, Kush even started early before you guys got here. He had. He had some zingers going. That's. It's. You know what's nice is I feel like we're a solid, consistent judging panel because I was about. I was originally thinking Tony and then I was thinking I would go for a cook when you guys said Tony. So my first thought was Tony. But do we reward his negativity? Because he's very. I mean, he's very kind of angsty in the chat bar. He likes to throw darts, you know, [1:09:49] Justin: like, isn't that what you want? You like that shots fired. [1:09:53] JD: Or do we go for the loose kind of vulgar humor of Kush? I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with. I'm gonna go with Kush. Put it in a tie and leave it up to our producer. Break the tie, Brandon. Tony or Kush? [1:10:14] Justin: Tony. [1:10:15] JD: Tony. Tony Davis. [1:10:17] Chad: That was a debate there from B. He knew. [1:10:19] JD: You are chap. Our champion this week and next week, I will be sending you £300 of cat food. So. [1:10:28] Chad: And maybe a little last night, Tony. [1:10:30] JD: Maybe a little carpet tower or something, if they've got those at a store near you. Yes, Brandon. Oh, yeah. Last thing, you guys. Brandon, stay on screen. All right, everybody, tech update. Brandon is using software that will fake his eyes looking at the. At this. At the camera. So if he looks sideways, it'll. It'll artificially make him look at the camera. Right now that's what he's got going on. [1:11:03] Justin: Do you have tech that can, like, artificially put a body in here and turn its head and everything now and. [1:11:08] Chad: Geez. [1:11:09] JD: Whoa. [1:11:09] Chad: That's crazy. [1:11:11] Mark: Just looked weird there for a second. Yeah. [1:11:13] JD: So you too, at home, the next time you're on a client meeting on Zoom, you can use this technology where the client actually thinks you're looking at the camera. Look at. That's kind of sick. [1:11:25] Justin: Kind of sick for colored eyes. [1:11:28] Mark: Okay, this is why I don't believe anything I ever see. [1:11:32] Chad: Ever so hard. [1:11:33] Mark: I just don't. [1:11:34] JD: Yeah, everybody got a lot of great guests lined up over the next few weeks. Although I gotta say, we started with no guests when we started the show eight years ago. I like these no guest shows. Once in a while, you all got a lot of positive feedback. Last time we did no guests, so we're gonna drop them in from time to time. But don't fear. We've got a lot of really cool guests lined up over the next few weeks. We're still kind of juggling which one will go where, but some really special ones look forward to us. Ones I'm excited about next week. I'm still fitting between three people. We'll see two people want to do it, but I gotta figure out which one. But, but. But. Thanks for tuning in, Roby. Thanks for hanging out, Chad. It's good to see you again, Justin, as always. [1:12:22] Mark: Jd, before sign off, if I. If I. If I actually hurt your feelings earlier today, can I. Can I just say something? [1:12:32] Chad: Oh, from the heart. [1:12:34] Mark: From the heart. [1:12:34] Justin: Yeah. [1:12:35] JD: Only if it's from the heart. [1:12:36] Mark: No, only from the heart. Yeah, I could care less. [1:12:44] JD: I challenge everyone out there. Go take it. [1:12:48] Chad: We're going to take the survey tonight. [1:12:50] JD: Jd, you can't take your. [1:12:51] Mark: Yeah, I know. I keep telling him that. [1:12:53] Chad: Absolutely I can. How's he going to know. Know? [1:12:56] JD: Oh, he knows. There's tech built in there, buddy. We know. [1:12:59] Chad: My name's Jim Sampson. [1:13:02] JD: When you do it, if you've got feedback for Tom, you can give it to him. There's a little contact information there. Y' all can reach out to Tom on LinkedIn too. He's busting his ass. He's got a lot of ideas. I, I want you all to close your eyes and envision what this could evolve to, because this is just the first step. [1:13:19] Mark: But I would also, I think Three Piece is trying to monetize the advisor. And I'm not cool with this, guys. [1:13:25] JD: But I would also like any feedback on the, the design, you know, the esthetic, the look, the, the, the user experience of the survey. Because that was Brandon I's new company that's spinning out that you all hear about in the coming weeks. That worked on it. And we, we did spend fucking an immense amount of time on that thing so that we coded it. We did the whole nine, bro. So. All right, we are going to play a song tonight. [1:13:52] Chad: To play. [1:13:52] JD: To play y' all out. Oh, sorry. Thank you to the audience for hanging out with us. The audience. Thank you to the retireaholics family for hanging out in the chat bar once again on Thursday night. We love you guys. [1:14:04] Mark: And girls, which Girl Scout cookies are coming soon? [1:14:09] JD: Soon. Good, good. Make sure Maya's got to do a good video though, or otherwise. [1:14:13] Mark: I know. I already, I already told her and she's. She's got some ideas. [1:14:16] JD: We are. We've got a calendar that's pretty pieced together for 2023. We'll. We'll be in Denver, we'll be in Scottsdale. We'll be in different places. Kansas City, we'll be in different places. Maryland. And so we'll release that soon once it's all kind of inked up, but hopefully we can see you all face to face and live at different conferences that will be performing on stage at later this year. Brandon and I did trivia contest last night with our little team. You know that we go to the bar, sit down, have dinner, have drinks and compete against other teams on these trivia takes. [1:14:53] Chad: Like, who's your. [1:14:54] Mark: Who's your team? [1:14:55] JD: Two and a half hours. It's me, Brandon, my wife, my buddy James, his chick Caitlin. And then other people kind of tag along. They can, like, you can have randoms come and sometimes. Yeah, yeah, no, we usually get a big table. If we would have got the last question right, we would have won another second place. And there's no. We ended up being like seventh or something because we lost. We lost the question. But. And there's like, last week there's 19 teams. This. This time there's like 15 teams or something. Anyways, the question was, what other country gets the most Grammys for, like, foreign film at the Grammy? The Academy Awards. Sorry, not grand academy Awards. And we were sitting there con. It's either Spain, France, or Italy. And then I was the dummy. That's like, my daughter lives in France. Let's. Oh, France. I was like three margaritas deep. And. And they were like. Our first thought was Italy. It was Italy. We would have won the whole thing. We would have had the championship. And one of the songs was. One of the songs. [1:15:59] Chad: I'm questions. [1:16:00] JD: One of the questions was. And we got this one right. I believe is in 1995, there was a number one top 40 pop hit by a band from New Zealand by the name Brandon. Make sure I get this right. Omc that right. What's the band name? Do you know what this song was called? Anybody? Chat bar? Anyone? [1:16:27] Chad: No. Google Searching Tom Condren. [1:16:30] JD: What a. [1:16:31] Chad: How bizarre. [1:16:33] JD: All right, Bren, play the song. We're out. See you next week, everybody. Love it. [1:16:38] Justin: No. After showing.