Sheri Fitts: Plan Design, Fiduciary Duties & PEPs | Retireholics

[0:02] Speaker A: In a world where retirement plans are broken, a team of four renegade ERISA nerds dared to fix it. Justin McNeil, the wild card who plays by no one's rules. Chad Johansson, the technical wizard who can turn anything into a spreadsheet. J.D. carlson, the man with all the plans hiding under his beanie. And Mark Palamini, AKA Robe Guy, the heart and soul of the crew. Together, they are retireholics changing the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. [0:35] JD: Welcome, everyone. We are happy to see you here on the first Thursday of August. We had a nice little three week break, which I always like. Buckle up, get prepared. We've got some great topics to talk about today. And just. Just a FYI or a public sir. Oh, public service announcement. I'm pretty sure Rogue Gu's been drinking by a lake all day. [1:01] Justin: So ask him about last night. Katie. Ask him about last night. [1:05] JD: So watch out. Let's get to it. We got a lot of COVID So Silent J, intro our guest. No one knows who. Who's here. [1:16] Justin: Yeah, you, jd. You know, our guest needs absolutely no introduction. She's probably the most loved person in the industry. So we're just going to skip right to the rapid fire questions. Are you ready, Sheri? [1:27] Sheri Fitts: Oh, God, yeah. Ready? [1:29] Justin: All right. All right. When JD asked about my manscaping, were you referring to a face mask like Chad or shaving my nether regions? [1:37] Sheri Fitts: I was talking about your face mask. [1:39] Justin: Okay. Just making sure. Wow. Thoughts on companies like. Oh, go ahead. [1:44] Chad: Wait. [1:45] JD: Although. Expand. [1:46] Sheri Fitts: Although. I've always wondered what it's like to take something sharp to that area. Never mind. [1:57] Speaker F: Quite. [1:57] Justin: It's a little scary. First time. [2:00] Sheri Fitts: Yep. [2:00] Justin: Anyways, what are your thoughts on companies like Pringle and Liquid Death? Coming out with flavors like Italian meatball and cinnamon roll iced tea. [2:12] JD: I. Yay or nay? [2:13] Mark: You know, wrong game, dude. [2:17] Sheri Fitts: Yay. I would say yay, because we gotta innovate. You know, you never know if you like it until you try. [2:25] Justin: But with Italian meatball, I don't want that in the form of a chip. [2:31] JD: I don't know. Sounds pretty good. [2:33] Sheri Fitts: Salty and spicy. What would be not good about a chip with salty and spicy And a little bit of grease? [2:39] Justin: You know, I don't know, maybe I just. I like a little marinara in there. Yeah, not working for me, but interesting. [2:48] JD: All right, this bit has really evolved, Justin. [2:50] Chad: Now it has. [2:51] Justin: And it's gonna. It's gonna get real legit right now. J.D. let me tell you. We're gonna test Sherry's knowledge of the show. What do you prefer nope or dope or the lamer game? Game. [3:03] Sheri Fitts: I like the. I like the. The Nope or dope. [3:07] Justin: Sorry, Mark. It's really pulling for you there. [3:10] Chad: Spintalk [3:14] Justin: or any other game. [3:15] Sheri Fitts: What? Say it again. [3:17] Justin: Fintok or any other game. [3:20] Sheri Fitts: Any other game. [3:22] Chad: There we go. [3:22] JD: I'm sorry. We'll be doing fin talk tonight. Go on. [3:26] Justin: Stock tips or headlines? [3:28] Sheri Fitts: Stock tips. [3:30] Chad: Yeah, we're back. [3:31] Speaker A: We're back. [3:32] Justin: But not least, let's see if you could, if you go 2 for 2 here then Nate's sister or Mark's sister. [3:41] Sheri Fitts: Oh, wow, that's an easy one. Okay, okay then which one? [3:50] Mark: No, there's no. [3:53] JD: All right, let's go to headlines. Brandon. [3:55] Justin: All right, here we go. [4:00] JD: You Nate? [4:05] Justin: No, Mark. He said my sister. [4:07] Sheri Fitts: Sister. Yeah, your sister. [4:13] JD: Let's see, from our friends at Plan sponsor magazine slash website, we have an article titled Vanguard proposes 401k match formulas with more non elective contributions. Chad got all in a tizzy over this and he can't wait to talk about it. But basically what they're claiming is they've done some studies and then if we tweaked our current kind of standard matching scenarios and I think for today's discussion, the, the basic safe harbor match is a good basis to go off of. If we could tweak that we could get better results. I think they talked about 6.67 billion in extra money going in if we instead push to their example was a stretch match. You know, Instead of giving 100% of 4%, let's skip the whole 50% of the next two things. Instead of giving 100% of 4% but stretching it out to 8 and giving 50% that could create some, some positive angles. But they also wanted to marry with it a 2% non elective. And I think this was kind of based around this concept. And if I could find this stat here, nearly three of every five match dollars goes to workers who are already deferring above the match cap. Meaning I think in a way kind of goes to the more wealthy people. And so this, this 2% non elective then would help all these lower paid people south of 50k, south of 30k get some money in the plan. But I'm curious, Chad, let me kind of push this to you real quick since you're excited about this. They say the cost of the employer will stay the same and that it's not going to go up or down. And I got a little bit confused by that. Like if, how's it, how's it going to Stay the same if I'm giving a non elective to everyone regardless of whether they defer or not. Oh no, Chad, you're muted. Chad, why are you guys muting yourself? [6:24] Chad: The way it stays the same is by the formula structure itself. JD they said we're going to give a non elective of 2% to everybody and then a 25 cent on the dollar match up to 8%. So 2% non elective and a 2% match. Same 4%, same 4% of pocket now. [6:43] JD: But how do they get the extra 67 billion? [6:47] Chad: It's because it's going to require the folks who are making more money to save more, stretch out their match to get the full eight to do the full 8% to get there too. [6:57] JD: Now classic pros of a stretch. And so you're also capturing 6.7 billion to clarify. [7:05] Justin: But isn't it though, if you're also capturing the non elective to a larger audience, to a participant, that's going to drive that those flows up as well? [7:12] Chad: Well, the general thought is that those people that the we'll say those making less, I think they used an income threshold of like 30k in their 30. Yeah, they're only contributing enough to get 2% right now is essentially what they're saying on average. So giving a 2% non elective will create very little more in terms of the matching contribution to them because it'll be 2% or 25 cents on the dollar for nothing. They're just not going to contribute much. So here's what I heard and I read in that JD when you read through the stats at the beginning, number one, it's all obvious I'm reading through there going like, okay Captain, obviously give me something of meat that I want [7:54] JD: to actually the broke people don't participate and the rich people do at high levels and everything in between is a spectrum. No shit. [8:03] Chad: Yeah. [8:03] JD: Morningstar. [8:04] Chad: When, when they got to the the breakdown for folks, I started to think to myself, you're already telling me the people who make less are not saving enough to get the full match. Now we're going to give them a non elective. I feel pretty confident that unless you push this with automatic enrollment that those folks just aren't going to save. They're going to take their 2%, they're going to say thank you and that 6.7 billion number is going to come down quite a bit and it's going to be for the people who probably don't need it as much. The impact here is going to be stretching the match for the people who are making more and probably getting less in the overall savings accounts of the people who need to be saving more. [8:46] JD: You would, you would think I'd be against this. I, I'm gonna have Sherry. Sherry chime in. But there's some things I really like about this. But Sherry, I feel like, like rogue guy, you're a person of the people, you know, the regular people. And so I, I would imagine you're a good voice. For the people making less than 50, 30K. What do you think about them getting 2%, like a new safe harbor in the future? That that gives them 2% and then this stretch match? You like this idea? [9:13] Sheri Fitts: Well, there's parts of me that, that is very concerned, like Chad, which is. Is that then there's no real reason for them to not participate in the plan. You know, can I say that the [9:28] JD: study according to Vanguard, they say that that's not true. [9:32] Mark: Yeah. [9:33] JD: If you read that article that they, they don't think the 2% negates the deferral rates for anyone at all. [9:39] Sheri Fitts: Well, because the other part is, is that there's still. That there's still. That there's still the match for them. There's still the match. So there is still some kind of, there's some aspirational opportunities there. [9:54] JD: Isn't it possible to Sherry and Chad that when someone sees some money going into their account that their eyes kind of open up and they're like, oh wait, I. I got money in here. Like maybe I want to start adding. [10:06] Justin: They even made that comment in the [10:08] Sheri Fitts: article though too, that they see, they see themselves as a saver. [10:12] Chad: No, no, Justin, no, no, I'm disagreeing with Chad. [10:16] Justin: I mean, I'm one of those people who it took automatic enrollment with my prior company and participating at 3% even though the max went to 6. For me to get wise about it and like, shit, okay, now I have some free money in here and I need to save more. [10:29] Speaker F: You're. [10:30] Chad: You're not the person we're talking about. First off, we're not talking about automatic enrollment either. Look at the deferral rates of plan plans that have a 3% non elective versus deferral rates that have a safe harbor match. The deferral rates and plans that have a safe harbor match are significantly higher because people are just getting. [10:47] JD: How would it compare to one that has both? [10:49] Justin: But you're. [10:50] JD: That's. [10:51] Chad: Think about it this way, J.D. when you see a traditional safe harbor match, how many folks stop their deferral at 3% to get the dollar for dollar to 3. But don't put in the remaining 2% to get the 50 cents on the dollar match to max out their full safe harbor match. It's, it's, it's a common issue when you look at metrics. So I think what you're going to find is that people would take the 2% and not worry about the extra 25 cents by putting in their own money. [11:18] JD: Yeah, well, how about Rogue guy? I know you're drunk, but how about the classic safe harbor match plan? I'm not endorsing this or saying this is okay, but where the small employer kind of likes that half of his or her staff don't defer. It's cheaper for that employer. So a safe harbor match sometimes is a nice design in that, hey, for the people that want to do this, I match them. And for the other ones, like, you know, I don't have to worry about it because they're not participating. This would smack that right in the face. [11:52] Mark: I feel like, yeah, I. 100%. But I would also say that the, I don't know, it's more along the lines of like understanding as an employer. Right. The idea of this is doing the right thing and it's actually going to help people long term versus the alternate. Like you're saying we sit in meetings all the time where guys are like, guys in gals are. Oh, no one on my, my, my staff is going to participate. So I want to do the match. And I always feel really bad about that. I'm just like, that sounds so terrible. [12:31] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [12:31] Mark: And I always, I fight that a little bit because I'm like, you know what? It's the job of the advisor now to get in there and to tell people why they should prove, prove this business owner wrong. Get in there and say, do you know what this means to you that your employer is offering you free money? You should really take advantage of it. [12:47] JD: You know, back in the day, I'd have employers come to me when I would do education meetings and they'd have a safe harbor match and they'd be like, hey man, like, do your thing. And I know we got to tell them about it, but it's like, don't make a big deal of it. Like, I don't want everyone signing up [13:01] Mark: for so bad, dude. [13:03] Chad: So they're used to. And now it's changed quite a bit, at least on the startup space with automatic enrollment requirements. But I remember one time, I mean, it broke my heart. It was a painting company. He had 100 like 30 people. There's going to be an audited plan at this stage. Back with old audit rules. And he's like, hey, I rolled it out and nobody is participating but me and my wife. I'm like, there's no way you rolled this out the way you were supposed to to 130 employees and that one person took you up on it. [13:36] JD: Hey Joe, you want your regular shift this week? Don't sign up for that forum. [13:41] Mark: Can I throw a. Can I throw a different. Maybe a different. A little bit of a curveball at this. And I know that this would be a nightmare for tracking and all this other stuff, but we're doing it with like Roth catch up where we're setting an income threshold to say like certain people who make over X have to do ketchup. And Roth could we set like an income threshold to say if you make under X then it is a non elective but anything over that, you don't have access to that. [14:08] JD: Maybe you're a commie, bro. That's what you are. [14:13] Justin: No, I mean if you did anything less than, than highly compensated definition, that's discrimination. [14:19] Chad: Or if you use this, you have [14:20] Mark: to exclude the highly comps. You know them. Right. Oh God. Okay, we will be out. I'd still be in. It'd be great. [14:30] JD: Let's. Let's wrap it. Because even Nate Moody said in the. In the chat bar that this is a, like an equity play. And this is going to sound horrible coming from me. And that's kind of how joking. But not usually I'm inside the whole equity play. I'm like, man, catalyst society. Let the winners win and the losers lose. But I kind of like this one. I kind of like the idea of giving 2% to all those people and making this a new type of safe harbor. [14:59] Justin: So my Vanguard likes it because they make more money too. [15:03] JD: Yeah, maybe. [15:05] Sheri Fitts: And the employers pay. [15:07] JD: Yeah. [15:08] Chad: And it. It may not work out the way Vanguard study is showing is my comment. But I don't think there's there anything wrong with that structure. [15:17] JD: And would you like to have. Wouldn't you prefer to have like four safe harbors to talk about instead of three? That'd be fun. [15:25] Chad: Yeah, I'd be down. [15:26] Mark: I want way more. I want give me. [15:28] Justin: I can count on one hand how many times I've talked about the food, the qualified automatic contribution. Yeah, that was close. [15:35] JD: I hate it when you guys set those ones up. Okay, let's go to Jerry. Let's go to. Let's go to a. Everyone We've talked a bit about this in the past, But Fred Reese, Mr. Reach is. And you can check out all of his blog posts on fredreich.com It's a beautiful website. Check it out. He has. [15:54] Sheri Fitts: I wonder why he's. [15:56] Mark: He's tackling plug without being a shameless plug. [15:59] JD: He's tackling these new proposed regulations. He's got. Geez, I want to say he's up to like 18 articles or something on there about them. I'd like to talk about the newest one which. Come on J.D. get your shit together. Was titled He's a great. He's great at titling his blog posts. This one was titled alternative assets number 16 Department of Labor proposal and the six defined factors thesis. Colon, colon, complexity parentheses 2. God, that's nice. [16:38] Sheri Fitts: I'm gonna open that email for sure. [16:40] Mark: That's, that's clickbait if I've ever heard it. [16:43] JD: I'm just saying totally in his, in his defense, he's talking about the, the sixth parameter, this, this complexity area. And he is a great, it's a great article if you read it. But he, he's talking about how the government is letting us know in this proposed regulation that they're aware that private investments, private equity, private credit will be used in, in 401k plans. And, and I think they're looking at it in kind of like private markets or kind of custom plans and the big billion dollar plans and stuff. But Fred's touching on it in more the regular market and discussing that target date funds and manage account services will, will potentially have these sleeves of private investments in them. And he's concerned, I'm speaking for him, so if I fuck it up, I apologize. But he's concerned that the Department of Labor is saying hey fiduciaries and you know, in the, in the small mid market I could replace that with plan sponsors. We'll talk about 338 in a second here. But fiduciaries would be responsible to really understand the mechanics of the private investments that are in these, you know, either collective investment trusts or managed accounts or target date funds. And God bless Fred Reich because he kind of says like that's not okay for this world. Like that's, that's not how things work. So Sherry, I'm curious, I don't know how much time you spend thinking about like these investment side of things, but do you think most plan sponsors dive? And I will say, even with their advisor support, did they dive deep into the underlying mechanics of target date funds like beyond like Maybe the glide path. Do they understand what's inside of those things? [18:33] Sheri Fitts: Most plan sponsors spend time on their plan once a quarter and their plan investments and at most. Right. And their advisor chances are has less than an hour, Most likely maybe 15 minutes to review what's going on inside those investment options. So I think expecting them to understand the nuances of private equity and even getting them ultra complex, just even. Yeah. It's ridiculous. What we're asking from the advisors is one thing and then what we're asking from a committee is a whole other thing. When, when you consider the fact that the time that's allowed to adequately review your plan is one hour once a quarter. No, they're not. And, and even if it, even if it's like a lot of advisors do, where you've got. Here's what we're going to talk about. And here's the backup material of 58 pages. They don't. Didn't. There's no time for them to review the. So no, they don't. They can't. [19:53] JD: So they, There's a lot of people that have read what Fred has written and they, they feel as though he's almost making the assumption now that a338 fiduciary outsourcing this to a professional would almost be like mandatory, like if you wanted to comply. Is that how you see it? [20:14] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [20:15] Chad: Specific to the article that we're looking at here, he's essentially saying in order to abide by what the DOL is damn the Department of Labor is proposing, you're going to have to have somebody on the outside doing this deep scrub, both from a time perspective to Sherry's point, but very much so from a knowledge perspective and access to data and insight and understanding of the terms that they're trying to lay out. You read through what Fred's writing there. I don't see any way, and this is me being perhaps a jerk in this. I don't see any way the majority of the financial advisors that I'm working with are going to find the time, the bandwidth or the margin to push that into their process. [20:58] JD: Okay, let me propose this to you and maybe someone else can chime in on this if they have a thought. We use technology these days. Retirement Plan advisory group Morningstar Fi360. These technologies drill deep into asset class. I don't know how well they do with target date funds these days. Someone would have to enlighten me. But, but I'd imagine they could be built to really drill deep down into these underlying investments. And create, I don't know, scores, stars, whatever. So why, why couldn't those companies jump on this to help a plan sponsor with a, as you put it, Chad, kind of a regular advisor. And then they could do it the same way they do it today. They just get nice scores. It lets them know they could just kind of trust the system. [21:49] Chad: Yeah, no, I think that that's reasonable. That's why my statement there was about the individual advisor. If you're going to outsource that responsibility to an app to a scaled 3:38, then I think it could be reasonable. But there are a lot of advisors now, JD that are signing on as their own 338 solution to plans. And, and I don't see how you're going to find the bandwidth, but especially the margin, especially if you're using alternative assets that those that are running a 338 practice can't charge the, by the way, five basis points they're charging. [22:26] JD: I'm not even sure like what the transparency looks like. [22:30] Chad: You can't get it. That's the point. That's the point Nate always makes. [22:33] JD: Yeah, well, how transparency, how are they going to give us transparency into these very complicated arrangements they have with private equity, private credit, like, and how lagging are those? And, and so it's definitely a can of worms. And I, I think I'll, we'll kind of move on from this one. But I think what Fred is saying, which I love when Fred goes, I used to not rip on Fred, but I've said this statement many times in my career. There's like the Fred Reich world and then there's the real world. And I was like, they can sit there, Fred and his other I'll drink ERISA attorney bodies and they can tell us all how they read the regs and, and how proper, prudent fiduciaries are supposed to do things. And then there's Sherry's point of having. Because most, most these plan sponsors aren't even having a meeting every quarter. They're having two meetings a year or one meeting a year, like so. And I'd say so there's the Fred's world and then there's the real world. I think Fred's coming over into the real world and he's realizing like, no, like this isn't going to fly. So our government is putting these, these rules in black and white in writing that to me are going to be traps for fiduciaries in the future. And that's not where we want legislation to take us I don't think. Think so. [23:48] Chad: Moody scared me in the chat bar. Did you see his comment about seeing market value adjustments or surrenders on target date funds? If we start having deeper sleeves of alternative assets of different fixed income solutions, could you imagine what that would do? That would be. [24:08] Speaker A: That would. [24:08] Justin: That would be. [24:08] Mark: That would be taking us backwards. There's. [24:10] JD: That's. Oh, this is already happening. Like, it's. It's. It's already happening. This stuff's being put into certain target dates. We should. We'll dig deeper on that in some future episodes and. And see where those things are going. Lissa, Sherry, can you ask my brother to spin Magical Wheel of Ice, please? [24:33] Sheri Fitts: Oh, goody. Can you spin the Magical Wheel of Ice, Brandon? How are you feeling, by the way? [24:40] JD: Brandon threw up today, guys, just before the show. [24:45] Justin: Sick, or we'd be hanging out with Mark. [24:47] Mark: Yeah, seriously. [24:50] JD: God, I love that. I don't. I don't know. [24:52] Chad: I don't. I don't. I don't love that. I want to know the calorie count on this thing. [24:59] JD: Diabetes in a bottle, Chad. Diabetes in a bottle. Okay, Sherry, it's. It's no secret to everyone since you're the master marketer, the master brander. You just got back from your Sway conference. I believe it's your third. Right? So it's the third year. Fourth year. [25:20] Sheri Fitts: Fourth. [25:21] JD: Fourth year. Me. Okay, fourth year. I want you to give us the positive. Hoorah how it went, which I'm sure is going to be positive. But then I'd also. I will ask some follow up questions. We'll dig a little deeper on the state of conferences in general in our industry. But tell us about Sway. Did it meet your expectations? How were the types of people that were there? You know, what do you want to share about it? [25:52] Sheri Fitts: That it was phenomenal and I was walking the dog this morning and I was crying the whole time. Not because I was exhausted, because I was just full of a shit ton of gratitude for everybody that was there. You know, we don't. In our. In our industry, we. We have. We have friends, we have acquaintances, and, you know, we see them in the hallway every once in a while. That's that. But we don't really get to have conversations about things that are very meaningful to us or actually, you know, be. Be privy to having a conversation that. About things that are meaningful. Like, you know, what. What do we think our purpose is here in the world, and how do we want to go about doing it? So that's the first thing. It was phenomenal the second thing is there was a thread. Thank you for posting it. I just posted it. [26:45] JD: Is that this year? [26:46] Sheri Fitts: That's this year. Yeah. We always do a class photo. Yeah. There was a thread of storytelling throughout the whole event. And I mentioned to Brian Anderson, a 401 specialist, When I did his podcast, he asked about why storytelling was so important. And I said, you know, in a world of sales, if you want to do mind control, get really good at storytelling. So we did a lot of work around storytelling and just, even the, just the structure of storytelling and the neuroscience behind storytelling. So, you know, a lot of this Woo JD actually comes down to neuroscience. We had music, we had art, we had time to talk. [27:31] JD: No, I was, I was at learn. [27:33] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, I was at your. Yeah, you're at the first one. [27:35] JD: And your inaugural one was. Was full of Woo Woo and hippiness and feelings and emotions that almost got uncomfortable at times. In a good way. I'm imagining that that theme has continued for the, for the people who don't know. Haven't been. Is this a 401k conference? Is this a marketing conference? Is it a Woo Woo conference? How do you describe what type of conference it is? [28:07] Sheri Fitts: Well, this conference is if I, you know, I'm checking the boxes. It's focused on personal branding and all the things that are kind of are part of a personal brand. JD yeah. [28:20] JD: 99 or 98 of people. There are 401k people, it appears to me. Right. [28:26] Sheri Fitts: No, we have. [28:27] JD: Come on. Most of them are. [28:28] Chad: I'm looking at, say I recognize like 80. [28:31] Sheri Fitts: You recognize. I know, but then the other 20 were wealth advisors. So we. Okay, yeah, we have wealth. We have wealth advisors too. So. Yeah, but definitely industry. [28:44] JD: Yeah, it's our industry that's there. [28:46] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, definitely industry. Yeah. So if you're thinking about the grind that this industry puts you through, just the grind, especially if you're in sales, this is a way to be able to just take a day or two and get out of the grind and get back into, frankly, your hustle, but in a really good way. Like it, like, you know, it gives coaching. [29:17] JD: I mean, not the classic sales training, coaching, whatever. Marketing. You're so right. We live our days, like fast pace, seven days a week. Grind, grind, grind. Email, email, meeting, meeting. We never stop and say, like, how do I better myself? How could I be more productive with this? How could I tune my skills in these? And we never do that because we're so damn busy. [29:41] Chad: Self reflection. [29:42] Speaker F: Yeah. [29:43] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. And you know, the other part of it is, is that. We, I mean, we all are storytellers. Every single one of us are storytellers. And there's an opportunity on Monday night where, where six new stories, not new, but six stories that we haven't had an opportunity to hear in this industry were shared. And Brian shared about his mom's mandolin, and Daniela shared about being a refugee. And Yolanda shared around. JD you would love this, how the ocean is her, is her deepest love, you know, from surfing. So my son shared about not letting your past define you. And Gabby shared about the, you know, how she was shrinking to, to not, you know, to fit in, in an environment that she didn't fit. [30:44] JD: Daniela. [30:45] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, Daniela. Daniela. Yeah. Everybody cried. So, you know, it is, it is. It's a really cool reset button. You know, you can go, you can go, you can go to, you know, Lake Tahoe and do golf to reset. That's certainly a way. And then there's a, there's a way to reset that Sway. [31:06] JD: It's kind of. Go ahead, John. [31:08] Chad: I was going to say, I often, whether right or wrong, jd when people ask how the transition went from your dad to you, I, I tell a story in some ways that said your dad told you, for 30 years I worked in the business and not on the business. J.D. you need to find a way to work on the business. And I feel like that's part of what Sway does. It takes you out of what you are doing and allows you to look at what brings you joy and what you, you want to be doing and the bigger picture of where the future is going to take you. And not everybody's good at that self reflection part of life. Too many people, and I look at it with kids, too many people, including myself, will end up losing years. Like they say, the days are long, the years are short. Like, I'm looking back right now, my daughter turns 14 tomorrow. I'm like, where the hell did that time go? And I feel like that happens in business too. You work in the business and not on it, not on yourself. And all of a sudden years pass. [32:05] JD: Well, I, I was really there this year. [32:09] Sheri Fitts: Thank you. I love it. [32:11] JD: Yeah, obviously I wasn't there this year, Sherry, but then the first year when it was smaller and my, my understanding is you, you want to keep it somewhat small. You're not trying to grow this thing to some massive conference. So I think you've kind of sticking to your roots here. But the first year I went, and hopefully, Sherry, this doesn't bum you out, because I don't want it to Scare people. Because I mean this in a good way. Most conferences you'll go to, someone will go on stage and someone will talk at you. You know, they'll tell you what they think. A lot of times, it's a compliance approved PowerPoint. And I've always been left yearning for more at those types of conferences. Like. Like, I'm not getting enough. Like, it's part of why we do this show here. When I went to your conference the first year, there was a lot of, like, spotlight put on the people that were there to tell and share and talk. There was a lot of. It was kind of like when you're a kid and your teacher says, hey, I want you guys all get together as a group and work on this project. And then present. There was just a lot of, like, accountability for everyone. That, at times, was almost uncomfortable for the people that aren't used to doing that, I'm imagining that that trend is continuing. And I'm thinking that for people that are listening in, like, that's a good thing for you to push yourself toward. It's a go somewhere where instead of people just telling you, these are the six top things to do here. And this is what I think. There's real conversations happening and growth. I guess there's the hippie part. [33:42] Speaker F: Go. [33:42] Sheri Fitts: Mark has epiphany. [33:46] Mark: No, absolutely not. I have a question, but I've interrupted the show. But we have an issue, guys. [33:52] Chad: We do? [33:52] Justin: What Webby just said. [33:53] Speaker F: Yeah. [33:54] Mark: Yes, we. I. I was not. Is it really the shame on me and Terry? You. Your conference is an ACRO acronym. [34:04] Sheri Fitts: No, I don't. [34:05] Justin: I don't think you can say it is. [34:07] Sheri Fitts: No, it's about. It's about sway. To influence. It means to influence. Yeah. [34:13] Mark: I mean, so. [34:13] Sheri Fitts: So Webby decided. [34:15] Justin: Yeah, but Webby, it's. You're giving a full sentence, not the actual. Just. Yeah, one word. [34:20] Sheri Fitts: Thank you. [34:21] JD: I think. [34:22] Chad: I think Webby just wants us to drink is what I think. [34:25] JD: Oh, that's what's going on. I did have a question. [34:29] Mark: This is going way back, but, Sherry, when you were on your walk and you were crying, did anyone ask you if you were okay? [34:36] Sheri Fitts: Oh, no, but then I was, you know. No, I wasn't wailing. I was just weeping. We were on our way. We. We have different walks. Today was the walk toward bacon, but thank you for checking in with me. There's. There's a coffee shop that gives Fezic bacon, which is hilarious. There's one that gives him biscuits and one that gives him bacon. So he gets Bacon. JD the one thing that I think that this industry has amazing people in it that, that have this deep desire to help individuals, you know, overcome inertia and do the right thing for themselves and their employees and all the things. And yet we spend most of our times at conferences being talked at by a very boring panel of people who did not prepare, who, who really are up there. Forgive me for my, for their own ego and not necessarily for the learning of the people in the audience. [35:36] JD: You just offended Chad, but that's okay. [35:41] Sheri Fitts: So one thing that is super important to me is that the voices in the room and the people in the room, their wisdom, their learning, what they know is more important than what's on stage. [35:54] JD: That's great. [35:55] Sheri Fitts: So we, we do spend a lot of time working, working on getting them to talk to each other. And we do it because we only have four people at each table. And that, that's why we can't grow JD is because we can't get a room. You can. Four people at each table limits the sizes of rooms that we can go to because the tables are six by three and La la la la. So your table science, were they, were [36:17] Mark: they coloring or you could you color them? [36:19] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [36:20] Chad: Oh yeah. [36:20] Mark: So cool. [36:21] JD: So okay, I love your, I love your four person tables. I love the coloring that Mark loves. I love the emotions and, and I will say like accountability for people really self reflecting as Chad said. But one thing that has to stop at these Sway conferences, Sherry, I will not put up with it any longer. I'm not going to come to a conference of yours if you're going to make me get up at like 5:30 in the morning to watch the sunrise at a amphitheater. I'm out. I'm out. [36:53] Mark: That's when we go. [36:55] Justin: Kate was doing whatever the bowl thing is. What the hell they call that? Sherry? [37:01] Sheri Fitts: E. Cat did that. It was a crystal sound healing. So we had some sound healing. A sound bath. Yeah. [37:08] Justin: And it's at Red Rocks. [37:09] Chad: Jesus. [37:09] Sheri Fitts: Come on. It was at Red Rocks. Yeah, it was at Red Rocks. [37:12] Justin: Gotta go. [37:13] JD: They broke in. [37:13] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, we had, we had everybody if that wanted to could come to a sound bath. So we, we rented a couple of vans and we got everybody in the lobby by 4:23. And we had coffee for them and water and snacks. [37:30] JD: Oh, Danielson, she had mimosas. So now you're getting me. [37:34] Sheri Fitts: We did have mimosas. We had mimosas. Not at Red Rocks because there's no alcohol in the park. Well, but we, but we left and we went up to a 7,400 foot amphitheater that overlooked the city of Boulder and we had a picnic and mimosas and sat there and it was really awesome. [37:52] JD: Okay, we need to talk about pooled employer plans and get Nate Moody all fired up. We need to talk about Strong Point and something I think's kind of cool. But Sherry, do we know next year? [38:05] Sheri Fitts: Okay, we, yeah, we do. We're going, we're going to Cleveland next year. [38:11] JD: Cleveland. [38:11] Sheri Fitts: Going to Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. And then the following year we're going to Asheville, North Carolina. [38:16] JD: And these will be end of July types of things or they will be the. [38:21] Sheri Fitts: It'll. So next year it's August 1st through 3rd in Cleveland and then in Asheville it's the 5th through 8th, so it's always the first Sunday in August, whatever that ends up following. [38:31] JD: Moody's going there next year. [38:34] Sheri Fitts: Cool. I would love to. Yeah. [38:38] JD: If you could get him to bring his sister, it would really boost attendance at next year. Okay, let's go on to this one. Strong Point Partners, I believe is their full name. I don't know if you all know who these guys are, but they're, they're a third party administration aggregator. They, they've bought several third party administrators across the country. I get emails and little fancy mailings from them all the time, but they, they came out with a press release that they have a. What's called a advisor growth lab. And, and you know the pessimism I have, I was like, oh God, what the is this? But I actually think this is kind of cool. So there's this dashboard where advisors can get up to date views of their, their book. So plan status, participant counts, plan assets, pending action items. So this dashboard of their book with strongpoint as a TPA which includes many TPAs underneath it, but just think of, oh, think of them as one. And I say I don't have something like that. I don't feel like most of my peers have a dashboard like that. I'm going to kick this to Chad real quick. On the PES side of me, I would say, okay, all those things they mentioned minus pending action items, and we can kind of guess what that is. Those are all things I could find at a record keeper site. I don't know why I need to go to a different EPA site. But what I think they've uncovered a potential here for all the things that you could put on an advisor that a third party administrator would offer. Like, I think there's a lot of room to run there. [40:39] Chad: 100%. And so that's my takeaway. As I was reading it was going well, nobody's going to go to the third party administrator site for these pieces of advisor guidance and education and tools. But when they got deeper into, and it is a common request for us, jd, when they got deeper into the status of plans, scale of book, like this time of year, I get calls from a ton of advisors. It's like, hey, we've got 25 plans together. Do I have any that have not turned in data yet? You know, they're on the communications but trackable. That is tough. That is valuable to advisors who partner with tpa. [41:17] Sheri Fitts: Damn. [41:17] Chad: Could be huge. Could be huge. Not just using one here or there, not just doing some, but like if you're partnering with them and you're doing multiple plans with them, that is a, that's a very good add on to that service model. [41:29] JD: I agree. Justin, tell me if I came out with that and I told you, you could go sell it. Where you could say to advisors, hey, every plan you have with us, you go to this dashboard, they're all there. You can see like where they are in terms of their compliance calendar. You can see the type of plan they are. Maybe you have access to their census and hcs and you know what deferrals they did last year or I don't know, Jesus Christ. [41:56] Justin: It's a game changer. [41:57] JD: You'd love that, right? [41:58] Justin: Yeah, absolutely. It'd be so easy to sell that because like you said, not many of our competitors are doing it. They don't have, I mean they haven't leveraged tech. [42:06] Chad: Go ahead, let me just argue, let me just throw out the other side of this coin real quick. How many, Justin, in terms of percentage of the advisors you're setting up plans with would be doing enough business where this would be impactful for them? [42:22] Justin: I don't care, to be honest with you. It's there for them and it's a selling point for us. So when you go to work with those big advisors who do sell a lot of plans, like shit, I'm working with plan design because they have this. It makes my life that much easier. And think about how much easier it makes our lives. How many emails do we get this time of year around deadlines like, hey, what's going on with my plan? [42:42] JD: I'm going to challenge you. [42:43] Justin: Just log into the portal, I'm going [42:45] JD: to challenge you as usual and say if I have five plans, I would love this. I'm a rookie, I don't Know what the fuck I'm doing. If I have another place I can check in and get more information so I can do my job a little better? Why not? [43:01] Chad: Even if you have one plan, the hard part is you have to take the time to access it. And that's kind of what I was getting at with my, my question to Justin is how many people that. [43:11] Justin: What do you mean, dude? [43:12] Chad: Three. They do three plans. They're a private wealth person. They do, they have three plans and that plans, one's with Hancock and two are with Fidelity. You really think they're going to log into. [43:26] Justin: Is it. Well, hold on. Maybe I'm looking at it too, you know, too closely. But is it quicker for an advisor to write us an email, say hey, what's going on with this one? What's going on with this plan? Or is it quicker for me to just put my credentials in and be like, oh, here they are. [43:38] JD: I thought you were going to say 100%. [43:40] Chad: Justin, they will email us 100% of the time. [43:43] Justin: Come on, train them. [43:44] JD: Justin, I thought you were going to say is it quicker to go to. And log into Voya and log into Hancock and log into American funds. [43:53] Justin: That's the point I was going to say next. JD that's exactly where I was. [43:56] JD: Sherry, I saw your, your chat there. You want third party administrators to do more for advisors. What do you think about this? This. What strong points doing here? [44:07] Sheri Fitts: Well, okay, from the, from the specifics, you know and what it offers advisors, I'm going to, I'm just going to say I'm not, I'm not clear on exactly what it is. However, however, what I have often suggested to other third party administrators is listen, if, if advisors are your channel, then advisors are your channel. [44:31] Chad: Build tools for advisors. [44:34] Sheri Fitts: Do everything you can to be a specialist on advisors, everything you can. And so build a tool for an advisor. To me seems like that would be awesome. [44:49] JD: I don't think we do enough of that. I don't think we do enough of [44:51] Sheri Fitts: that and like understand that they are, you know, that they're business owners and business leaders and they're hiring and firing and all that stuff. And there's all these components of an advisor organization, either you know, an individual rainmaker or a larger group that if the third party administrator world got super good at, it would be a non issue to work with, you know, tpa. [45:21] JD: I would also argue that our information, our data, if you will, might actually even be sexier to the advisor than account balance and where people's investments are if they could dive into real and type stuff like it could be pretty interesting for them and they could more value to their clients. We could provide all kinds of things for them. So I say kudos to strong point for taking a step in that direction. I thought the funny part of it was and at the. At the Hub you can request a proposal for a new plan. Of course you naked sales but good for them. I. I think that that's great. Please stick around because we're gonna do a fun bit right now. But I. I saved the best for last. I was going to talk pooled employer plans on our last show and I think I got too drunk and I ran out of time or something and so we're going to dive back into it tonight. Yeah, there's quite a few rough people right now. But before we do that, let's play Sherry's favorite game, Fin talk. I'm starting to skate. Skate outside the lines. Draw outside the lines. And I. [46:47] Justin: Let's get though. [46:49] JD: So some of these might not even have anything to do with financial services or 4K. I just thought they were funny. So anyways, Brandon, play a few. We started the game, we never got to finish Play for Blood. Remember? I was just fooling about. [47:09] Justin: I wasn't. [47:15] JD: Gary, I. I don't imagine you get a lot of passive aggressive emails in your. In your line of work. I'm guessing. No. [47:22] Sheri Fitts: But you know, this is why I. I tend to use AI sometimes because I am queen of passive aggressiva. I am totally. [47:34] Justin: I would have not guessed that. [47:38] Sheri Fitts: I get. And in fact jd, we were talking about gummies and everything before the show started. And that's one thing for me is when I get high, I get super passive aggressive. [47:49] JD: Really? [47:51] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [47:51] Justin: So I kind of want to test this out in person. [47:54] JD: You heard it here first. [47:56] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, it is in fact. In fact, my friend, when we were doing a little mushroom in Denver, she said to me, sheri, on a scale of 0 to 10, how passive aggressive are you right now? And I'm like, yeah. [48:14] JD: We had an idea for Retireholics episode where Brandon would ship us all something to eat, but only one of them would be dangerous. And then the audience would have to figure out who you ate the wrong thing. I thought that'd be a fun game. [48:34] Sheri Fitts: That'd be hilarious. [48:36] JD: Okay, Brandon, play the. Play the next one. I mean this is just that this is. [48:47] Justin: Oh, I hate the water. I kind of want to throw up right now. [48:56] Sheri Fitts: It does the same thing with mustard. [49:00] Mark: Napoleon Dynamites doing bad lately, huh? Same thing. [49:05] JD: Yeah, same thing. So that just. I just thought. That's funny. All right, next one. Brandon. [49:10] Speaker A: Friday. [49:12] JD: Happy Friday. [49:13] Sheri Fitts: Good. [49:13] JD: Saw you. Think we can wrap up early today? Yeah, I think so. The calendar looks open, so I don't the. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. [49:24] Speaker F: I'm down. Friday. [49:34] JD: Sorry. What's wrong? Oh, no. Do you have a minute for a quick chat? Come on, Justin. We use. [49:51] Justin: That's the only thing that came my mind was Devin right there. Sorry. [49:54] Speaker F: Yeah. [49:55] JD: You have a minute for a quick chat? [49:57] Chad: Devin's. Devin's gotten really good at setting expectations. Devin's like. Like, hey, I need 17 minutes. I'm like, okay, I get it now. That's how much time you actually need, because it's not a quick chat. [50:09] Justin: I didn't realize he was here. [50:11] JD: I hate teams with a passion and we use it. And. And I also hate when people are like, hey, can I. Give me a quick call? And then I hang up the call. I'm like, that was 45 minutes. Like, son of a. [50:24] Chad: Hey, you. You have an issue with that? Personally? [50:29] JD: Yeah. No, I have major issues with that. There's. [50:31] Sheri Fitts: Sure. [50:32] Chad: Continue to talk. [50:33] JD: There's certain people that work for me that I'm afraid to call. [50:36] Justin: Is that where our team gets it from? [50:38] JD: All right, play another one, Brandon. This might be my favorite. [50:44] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [50:45] Speaker F: You know, we have a son. [50:46] JD: Can you. Brandon, can you pause? [50:48] Speaker F: And I'm in the game here. Nice silent neighbor. [50:50] JD: Never mind. Okay, started back. I just found this guy on Tick Tock. And so you're gonna piece all together. But you know how when you wake up early in the morning and someone's getting their grass cut? This is the guy that's doing the job. And, Brand, if you could rewind and turn it up a bit. I love this guy. [51:09] Mark: Too early for grass cutting. Go ahead. It's not 6 30. It's not 6 30. There could be no 6 30, you know. [51:21] Speaker F: We hear, son. Got my finger on the trigger. And I'm in the gaze of a nice, silent neighborhood. [51:38] Justin: Oh, God. [51:42] Speaker F: And apparently the weather boy says, we got some air quality situation happening right now. I was wondering why it smells like a bonfire out here today. Y' all bring the s'. Mores. I already got the heat. This fire right, baby. Deep in my soul. And you can't extinguish it. [52:00] JD: Let's get it. [52:10] Chad: This is JD's kind of comedy right here. [52:14] Mark: Tristan, [52:25] JD: Nate, Moody. I'm glad you're picking up what I'm putting down. This. This. This segment is Evolving. It's evolving. Okay, let's. Let's move to our final subject and a crazy subject. Freddy. Freddie. I want to say it. Freddie B. Have wealth management dot com. [52:46] Mark: That doesn't. [52:46] Justin: That one. [52:47] JD: No, that's okay. Has an article titled. Sorry that, that threw me off there. [52:56] Chad: Old employer plans. Growth faces, adoption, headwinds. [53:01] JD: Okay. [53:02] Chad: I thought it was bad nature. [53:04] JD: Yeah, Mainstream niche and niche. Niche says John. [53:09] Sheri Fitts: Niche. [53:11] JD: Niche says John Sullivan. Okay, here's the deal. Freddie says, look, Peps, we think estimated. Oh yeah, estimated are pushing towards 40 billion. Okay. And he's saying, hey, you do the math. Whether this is success or not, it's. It's growth since it started. You all know that I'm, I'm a big anti on this. Currently Freddie's saying that leaves them under 2% of all defined contribution assets. So we've been playing this game for many years now. You know, the jury was out years ago that pooled employer plans are going to somehow change the world that we live in. And here we are many years later, after all the big push, all the big marketing, all the companies that wanted to happen and we're still below 2%. I would like to add my own. It's not a conspiracy theory. This is facts. By the way, the 40 million is an estimate right now. Where are my notes? I'm just gonna riff it. [54:29] Justin: 40 billion. [54:31] JD: Sorry. Yeah. If you take paychecks and you take Aeon, who combined currently when, when we thought the assets of pooled employer plans were 20 billion, they had 7 billion of that. They were 1/3 of the total pooled employer plan marketplace. I think that average will continue as we get to these new numbers. So paychecks and Aon are 1/3 of total pooled assets. If you are trying to use this as a test to see if plan sponsors and or advisors think pooled employer plans are a good solution, I think you have to remove paychecks and aon at least a good chunk of them because that was, I've said this before, that was left pocket, right pocket stuff. That was not plan sponsors and advisors deciding to be part of a pooled employer plan. That was those vendors deciding to move their clients to those types of solutions because it behooved them and not their clients. And so I say once again, and I think Freddie's article is leaning towards it, in the end, no, everyone, it has not been a success. The only people who tell you that it is are the people that are slinging it. And it is still just a drop in the bucket. And I would argue the big push, the big explosion, the big adoption has already come and gone and now there are people who are smart that are. And I'm not even getting into the conflicts of interest and why this is bad. I saw a press release this week from the Standard coming out with a new 403B one, and they're the pooled plan provider, they're the administrator, and they're the 316 you like. What is that? So anyways, they're failing. Anyone in the chat bar think differently. Anyone on this stage want to tackle [56:37] Chad: me on that sensor? The sensor is here. So he's. He's ready for you in the chat bar. It was standard. It was standard that you, Mike, dropped at a conference, by the way, our years ago, actually. [56:52] JD: You ready for me to promote Standard? If there's any case of pooled employer plans working, it's worked for them. They're very big in it and they've done billions of dollars in it and they're doing it more by just setting up a bunch of them with partners everywhere. So I'll give them that. Still full of conflicts of interest, like in a ridiculous way. Oh. Oh. Freddie B ended, I think, by saying what I've always believed and. And someone on our show, Eric Dyson, I think, said this. Who's in these courtrooms? We're just like a year away from Schlichter going after these things and Schlichter's peers. So you think you're safe in a pool employer plan? No, no, no. You're literally in the target sites. When you reach a certain mass, they're coming for you. So anyways, shoot me down or. [57:45] Sheri Fitts: I love that little. [57:46] JD: Agree with me, don't agree with me. I just had to get that off my chest because I'm vindicated, am I not? [57:55] Chad: It's too early. It's too early to say. [57:57] JD: How many years has it been? [57:59] Chad: It's been. [58:00] Justin: It's been four, three or four. [58:02] Chad: It's setting every community up for Retirement Enhancement 1.0. So it's been four years. Oh, Claude. [58:09] JD: Gemini. [58:10] Chad: Tell me, question mark. No, I don't think you're vindicated, but you certainly are. You should be supported in what we have and are continuing to see, which is. It is a lot of shifting plans that otherwise these businesses would have won and. Or existing business going over. [58:31] Sheri Fitts: Right. [58:32] Chad: We did, you know, we did Dog and Pony, Smoke and Mirrors, Washington D.C. as to what we wanted these plans for. Yeah, Jess and I got one of these. It wasn't distribution. [58:44] JD: It wasn't did you see Fred's article that said it was the. They're very popular in the north of 250 million dollar market. I almost threw up on my laptop on my 66. [58:56] Chad: I have it right here because it was one of my notes. 67% of plans with 250 million to 1 billion in assets. That's what makes up this pooled employer plan. [59:05] Justin: That's bridging that coverage gap right there. Let me tell you. [59:07] Chad: That is so, so, so we, we didn't use it for what's right. JD here's my fear and I think Moody mentioned it in the chat bar either before, maybe even earlier today. If we see some push of the powers that control a lot of the purse strings in our space, like alternative assets finding their way in the pool employer plan space, we are going to see a ton of money lead that direction. We're having too many broker dealers, too many large asset gatherers that, that have 5, 7, 10, 20,000 advisors underneath their house that if they start to launch one and, and it's, they launch because they know alternative assets will be as stable inside their asset allocation or their, their target day funds. We're gonna see pool employer plans take off then. [59:58] JD: Well, you mean for bad reasons. [1:00:00] Chad: For bad reasons. But I'm saying what's going to take it from what we've seen in terms of failure over seven years to success in the next seven. It would be a push like that. [1:00:10] JD: That would be a scary push. Yeah. I mean you're basically saying hey, if they could tentacles into those types of plans then they would somehow help push that narrative. I, I just want the entire industry to keep their eyes open in this. And this is why I've kind of made a stink about it for the last five years is it really is motivation of the people that are trying to make money that are pushing this. If, if you ask the general public and, or you and I meet with a lot of advisors and you asking most advisors, most advisors are against this. Like they're, they're not for this. It doesn't fit their business model. They don't want to do it. The main, main push of this is for the people that, that sell it. And I get it, that's fine. Like I'm not saying that's a bad [1:00:56] Chad: thing, but Fred suddenly made that point in two spots. One he said, and this is tooting his own horn a little bit, but he said it at, at oh, I'm just going to drink for it. Tpsu, the plan sponsor university right yeah. He said we rarely have businesses ask questions about rarely. And he's got I think hundreds of thousands of businesses under that group. And then the second one was he didn't say that advisors are questioning it. He said, and I think there's stats to show this to be true. Advisors are reluctant to use it. Not that they're questioning it. That they don't want to. They won't at this point. [1:01:39] JD: And you know where they, where they wave the flag. Sherry is many people who kind of look into our industry will say, well look, it's an initiative for a lot of record keepers. So JD Isn't that proof to you like most record keepers are considering, have already want to offer this? I'm saying, and I'm saying, and I'm curious what you think about the statement, Sherry. Like, I'm like, that's not proof of, of this being popular. That's record keepers not wanting to not have an arrow in their quiver. Like they just want to make sure they have a solution if someone asks. But clearly. Yeah. Okay, so you agree with me. I get so flustered with this. I. [1:02:20] Sheri Fitts: Well, and in it, there's a couple of things that the stuff that pooled employer plans do in a way from reducing the complexity. Reducing the complexity. Supposedly for plan sponsors. Right. So complexity is the commodity kind of. Right. What? [1:02:41] JD: Well, just by doing what? By, by offering a 316 fiduciary and a 330. And I know you're not their spokesperson, but we've always been able to outsource that. [1:02:52] Sheri Fitts: Right. It's just a packet for me it's just packaging. Yeah, it, it feels packaging and I don't think that it's any kind of innovation from a record keeper perspective. [1:03:05] Chad: And, and I have, I have to make a comment because I feel like I'm sweating after this one. Veronica in the chat bar said, does anybody really want to do a, a plan doc and a 5500 for a plan with 200k in assets? Yes. Don't, don't be tied to the assets. [1:03:23] Speaker F: Yeah. [1:03:24] Chad: A $200,000 plan is the same thing as a $200 million plan if you're not tied to the assets. Third party administrators love to write plan docs, support, create customization in terms of what the client's looking. And chad on a $200,000 plan. [1:03:37] JD: That was Veronica. [1:03:38] Justin: Yeah. [1:03:39] JD: And Veronica, my family owned business of 51 years is, does exactly that. That's what we do. And what we've done for five decades, Veronica, is sell. [1:03:53] Chad: And we love helping those small Plants [1:03:57] JD: like yes, those happen all the time. And I'm just one little company across 50 states that do it. So yeah, that, that does get sold all the time. We'll sell hundreds of them this year. [1:04:09] Chad: You know, so now to support the other side of that, if there was a viable cost effective, efficient solution that didn't sell things that were not needed, like an outsourced 402A and potentially 316, like if you could do the pooled employer plan space with what the micro plans actually want and need and do it at scale, then I would sign up for it. But that's not an employer plan is. [1:04:37] JD: That's called guideline and human interest. [1:04:40] Chad: And then we'll fix those. [1:04:43] JD: No, not everything can be perfect. I'll just leave everyone with this and we'll, we'll wrap it for the week. But Sherry, I don't know if I've done my soapbox with you, but I just feel like now, just very quickly. We came from an old industry where fee disclosure was a real problem. Like Veronica just mentioned 12 B1s and, and sub TAs and we had, you know, different share classes of funds and so fees were very not transparent. Oh, my bad, I'll drink. And, and then the industry really improved. Like we moved to this institutional share class. We really kind of broke out the advisors comp, the third party administrators comp, the record keepers comp. We've done a lot of great things to really like improve our integrity, I guess like make us look less evil Wall street and more like do gooders, which I think we really are like. I think the, the 401k industry in terms of advisors are good people wanting to help. And so we were on this great path where things were clear, transparent, full of integrity. And now I feel like why push so hard on these pooled employer plans is they're dragging us back into conflicts of interest, into revenue being hidden inside these things, into these relationships that are built on selling and making money. And I don't want my industry to be drug back into that world. And the easiest way I could describe it is if you explained to Schlichter how these things work and these relationships, he would, he would laugh his fucking ass off. He'd be like are you kidding me? Like this is ridiculous. And we continue to do these press releases just highlighting these conflicts of interest in this strategy. So again, to Chad's point, this is not what the government approved. We turned it into our own mousetrap. It's full of conflicts of interest. It's not cheaper, by the way. Everyone's already agreed to that. But that's common knowledge now. I was shouting it from the rooftops, you know, five years ago, and now everyone's like, oh, yeah, no, they're not cheaper. We know that. Oh, that was literally your first bullet point fucking five years ago. And now it's not. And I just think as an industry, we need to step up and not let. And I'll shut up when I say we financial advisors, industry professionals, third party administrators need to step up and say, this is our industry, these are our clients, and they're not yours. Empower Standard Voya. No, no, no, no. You're the vendors. You're the record keepers. We sell these things. We service them. These are our clients. And so don't let them tell us where to take our industry. Not their industry, our industry. And I'm not going to stop fucking talking about it. So anyways, okay, that's that. My blood pressure has skyrocketed. Sherry Fitz, she's got to be top of, like, total a guess on this show. She's got to be close to it. [1:07:57] Justin: I don't think I. I don't think there's. It's even a question. [1:08:01] JD: 4, 5, 5, 6. I. I don't know, but I just [1:08:06] Sheri Fitts: think about all the conferences, emailing jd When I hang out with you guys, I'm like, I've just missed you guys a lot. [1:08:13] JD: I don't think I haven't had a [1:08:15] Sheri Fitts: chance to give you a hug lately. [1:08:16] Mark: Yeah, I don't think amount of appearances really matters other than like, Sherry, you've been day one. Like you were a part of our evolution and growth. [1:08:28] Speaker F: Totally. [1:08:28] Mark: And the reason why we're here. [1:08:30] JD: Yeah, very true. [1:08:31] Chad: That. That lunch we had years ago where Sherry held our feet to the fire in terms of the vision of retireholics. That was a big turning point for us. That was. That was awesome and so kind of you. [1:08:43] Justin: I still have my glass heart. Sherry. [1:08:46] Mark: Oh, my God, Sherry. Now I get it. [1:08:48] JD: You. [1:08:48] Mark: When we were meeting with you, you were so high. You're being so passive aggressive. [1:08:56] JD: Why is. Why is the census. Why is the census. [1:08:59] Justin: He is fired up because he wants Chad to call him and talk about pool and employer plans. [1:09:05] JD: He doesn't even care about pool and employer plans. [1:09:07] Justin: Oh, he does. Oh, he does. [1:09:11] JD: That was one of my favorite shows though, going back and forth. [1:09:14] Sheri Fitts: I love, I love you all. I love you all and, and, and what you. What you continue to bring to our industry and what you brought. And I say this all the time when we were. We didn't have a place to go during COVID and you gave us a place every Thursday night. I'll be forever grateful for that because. [1:09:33] JD: Thank you. [1:09:34] Sheri Fitts: You know, it was. It was lonely and dark and you brought laughter and community, and you still bring laughter and community. [1:09:41] JD: Well, that was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun for us and that was a big up for us. So I pray every night for a new pandemic. So we'll see. [1:09:49] Justin: Think of how retire, how evolved because of that too. [1:09:52] Mark: Dude, I was. I was hoping this whole shredded lettuce diarrhea thing was going to take off major so it never happened. [1:10:00] JD: So. [1:10:00] Sheri Fitts: Sherry, diarrhea. [1:10:02] Mark: Yeah. [1:10:03] JD: Back up robe, guys. Comments. And just. Yeah, we're definitely us because of you in a big way from early on, from 10 years ago. And so we love you as well. Everyone who tuned in tonight, we love you. It's great to see you again. And we are the retireaholics. And we still are changing the retirement plan one beer at a time. And tonight. [1:10:26] Sheri Fitts: Yeah. [1:10:27] JD: Disgusting Japanese whiskey. Yes. [1:10:30] Mark: If you want to attend Sherry's conference next year, enter in the promo code retireholics. And it cost triple. So you'll think you'll thank us later. [1:10:41] Sheri Fitts: Yeah, I'll do that. [1:10:42] JD: The extra money goes to our beer fund. So thank you out there for tuning in. We will see you in two weeks for another show. And thank you. Sherry and Brandon, play some music and yeah, we'll see you next time. See you later. [1:10:54] Chad: Thank you. Sherry, you were incredible as always. [1:10:59] Sheri Fitts: Thank you, guys. Nice to see you.