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11. Using Assessments to Deepen Client Relationships with Dr. Sarah Fallaw · Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Investing is a job, and how can we understand how clients are capable of doing that job?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at their entire kind of investor personality.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial advising meets the art of meaningful conversations.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: As a certified financial behavior specialist and a passionate advocate for personal growth, I'm here to help you elevate your practice and deepen your connections with clients.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: In each episode, we dive into the intersection of psychology, therapy, and financial advising.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: You'll discover practical strategies, insightful stories, and expert interviews that will empower you to not only excel in your profession, but also thrive in your personal life.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Together, we'll explore the human side of financial planning, from understanding client emotions to mastering the nuances of effective communication.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We'll also focus on your own growth because the best advisors are those who are continually evolving.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Get ready to transform your practice and yourself.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is Planning and Beyond.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Incorporating assessments into your practice can bring so much value to the client relationship.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you know which ones to use and what you should be looking for when choosing?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show dedicated to helping you deepen your relationship with your clients and yourself.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ashley Kwame.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm joined by Dr.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah Falaw.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you who may not know Sarah, well, and that's a shame, as I say for about most of our guests that come on here, because I think that they're all wonderful.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But Sarah is the co-author of The Next Millionaire Next Door and the founder of Data Points, a financial advisor tech company.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: She created the industry's only predictive assessment for future financial outcomes based on her father, Dr.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Stanley's work from The Millionaire Next Door.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe some of you have read it before.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know that it was on our shelf, uh Clayton and I's bookshelf, um, in college long before I met Sarah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah's research on the psychology of wealth has been featured in numerous conferences and publications.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And in addition, as if she's not busy enough, she also consults with firms worldwide on measuring client personality.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah, welcome to the show.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was such a kind introduction.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to be here.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all very true.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, all very true things.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that I made up anything.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about our conversation today and selfishly getting to also learn from you.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like anytime that we have a conversation about assessments, measuring personality, that I always learn something from you.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a selfish part of me that's excited to get to learn a little bit more today than what I knew prior to this conversation.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's okay with you before we jump into all of that, I'd love to maybe start by having you share just a little bit about how you got into the finance industry.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: How does a psychologist get into the finance industry?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's kind of a strange journey.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as you mentioned, my father, Tom Stanley, consulted with financial services firms for a long time, um, helping them understand how to find and market to affluent Americans.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he would work with, again, banks and large institutions.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was a marketing professor.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was sort of always swirling in the background in terms of, you know, family business, so to speak.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I went to school to pursue psychology, really thought I was going to end up more in your field, Ashley, like, you know, in clinical psychology, um, therapy, counseling, um, but ended up really loving the measurement side of psychology.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So measuring satisfaction, measuring, measuring um personality, really trying to understand how you could use um statistics to really kind of understand these things about us that we can't see.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up in industrial psychology, spent a lot of time in my career um helping firms and organizations really select individuals based on their personalities, their attitudes, and things like that.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on in my career began looking at how I could use those skills, if you will, those measurement skills, psychometrics and things like that, um, in the family business.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um that's kind of how Data Points was born was to help financial services firms identify individuals that could be great wealth builders in the future.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if they, you know, are are brand new to financial planning, um, but then also to really understand their clients' personalities.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how I how I got here.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a roundabout way.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But also it sounds like um, I don't know, kind of meant to be.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in in some ways, which is, I think, always just really, really kind of cool, you know, to hear that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And thank goodness you did make that transition because, in my opinion, I think that, you know, not that you would not have made a fantastic clinician, but I also think that the finance space is so much better off uh because of your work, you and your father's work, and now, you know, moving on into data points and everything that you've created there.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: So grateful um that your life journey took that turn and that you're here now.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think too, you know, when we first sort of started data points, really all that was out there in terms of understanding clients in this field um really had to do with risk tolerance.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that was kind of always a quiz, you know, usually created by the firm, kind of had questions that even I didn't understand.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, how do they really measure anything?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so there was a lot of um potential for growth in in the field related to that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So no, glad to be here in that regard.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So let's maybe jump in a little bit to talking about measurement and assessments.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know that in at least the space that I'm seeing, uh, it is becoming talked about a lot more, just how to incorporate them, how to incorporate assessments so that advisors can understand their clients better, uh, maybe in a more meaningful or deeper, deeper way.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for those who maybe, well, even for those who are familiar with assessments, I'd love just from your professional uh expert lens, what are what is what really is like an assessment?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how would you kind of talk about it?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and why why do you think advisors should uh be using them with their clients?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, uh in terms of what is an assessment, it's really anything that measures a client's attitudes or perceptions or personality.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And really, firms are using them whether they know that or not.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're using an interview question, you're assessing your clients, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're kind of you're you're doing that maybe subjectively, maybe not in a structured way, um, but you are assessing something about them.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are they going to be a good fit for our firm?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, will they be challenging to work with?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we do at data points is really structure that process.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So an assessment is something in in our world that is a scientific way of understanding a client's personality that's structured, um, that does what it says it's doing, so it has validity, and it is a way to efficiently understand a client's personality in order to then serve them better, personalize the experience, all of those things.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how I would define an assessment.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I love that you talked about validity.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I because look, we're a lot of us are on social media, we see these assessments.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a buzzword, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: That that like craps up, but can you speak maybe a little bit more to like that validity aspect when we're looking at, oh, this is gonna sound just maybe judgmental and I don't know, I don't want to say a real assessment here, but you know, we're not looking at Facebook assessments um quizzes.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Quizzes, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Talk a little bit about like that validity piece and maybe, you know, kind of why that's important.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, we all of us could probably sit back and think of some questions that would, you know, lead to some information about someone, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We could say, you know, um, you know, how fast do you like to drive, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you always drive over the speed limit?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, or do you always drive under it, or do you write, you know, right at it?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, that might help you understand something about your clients, maybe how often they're going to be on time or something like that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who knows?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But until we have some evidence that it actually predicts that, we can't say for sure.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so really what we try to do at data points and and any good kind of test publisher would would do this as well, is make sure that we're actually measuring what we say we're measuring.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the the place where this comes into play the most, particularly in financial services, has to do with measuring a client's risk tolerance.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if, you know, again, you're making decisions about their portfolio, it's critical that you're actually measuring what you think you're measuring.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where validity comes into play.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And really, you're never, you can, um, a good psychometrician would tell you you can never put a stamp of approval on something.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that is always being evaluated.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you're constantly throughout the lifetime of an assessment determining its validity.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But again, you can see evidence over time of studies and things like that to make sure it's actually doing what you think you're doing.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're paying for, you know, what we would affectionately call a cosmo test, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like it it's fun and it kind of gives you some information back, but it in reality it doesn't really tell you much of anything.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's an important, you know, something important to keep in mind because I would imagine that a lot of advisors or anyone really that's not in the line of work that you're doing, it can probably be hard to know, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, you slap the word assessment on it, and it's and maybe some other fancy words, I don't know, too, and some creative like marketing languaging there.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And like it can seem like it, but you know, you know, we'll get into this maybe a little bit later, but kind of knowing like the validity piece to that, I would imagine, is really helpful because at the end of the day, like you want to make sure that anything that you're asking your clients to do, or anything that you're giving them, right, that it's going to be um helpful uh and and and meaningful and uh good quality, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And especially too, since you know, we think that the value of using assessments is in that follow-up.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the deeper conversations that you're having with your clients based on their results.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so if the results, you know, are less than reliable, they're not exactly accurate, you know, using them as a kind of a jumping off point for deeper conversations is is you know not advised, let's just say.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe we can move into some of the assessments in particular.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the uh risk tolerance one, the uh investor profile that Data Points uses.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Can you speak maybe a little bit more to what that is measuring and help us understand that a little better?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we saw kind of a gap in the market, if you would, for those risk tolerance assessments.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: They typically measured one thing, um, kind of one score, one piece of information.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they did that with questions that were we would say old, meaning the the numbers, like the values were kind of um not relevant to today's kind of, you know, how inflation and everything else.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we really saw a market where we could apply kind of this mindset that investing is a job.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And how can we understand how clients are capable of doing that job?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at their entire kind of investor personality.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so we measure multiple factors in that assessment, along with providing the advisor an overall score, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because in order to make decisions about a client or a portfolio, you have to have an overall score.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we provide information about the client's investing personality, their emotional kind of reactions and so forth to the market, along with preference and judgment and confidence, all those things you hear about when you hear about investor personality, but we actually measure them in the test.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's, you know, I think that that's one of the pieces, again, that advisors use to have those follow-up conversations and not just sort of end it with, okay, you gave us this information, you took a test, we're gonna move on.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking like how helpful and useful that would be to know, you know, on the emotional right side.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Shockingly, that's what I'm, you know, maybe interested in.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, being able to know like if a client, what would you say, maybe kind of scores like higher or lower?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how would you explain that more?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think, you know, maybe we can take sort of a scenario that tends to be challenging for advisors.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that is when a client that, you know, maybe they're just starting to work with scores very, very high on the confidence factor and low on judgment.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they low meaning they really look at investing as more like gambling and having fun and trading, but they're super confident and they're also very low on what we call volatility composure.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they tend to feel fear, anxiety, and worry much more so than other clients.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: But again, at the same time, they're very confident.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, typically that type of profile is an indicator that a client is overconfident.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, as as you know in the line of work that you do, you know, maybe they don't, the client doesn't even recognize that and hasn't even thought about the way they've been making investing decisions in the past.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that's kind of one way that advisors use the tools to really identify what kind of profile, what kind of client am I working with?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, what kind of guidance or communication can I provide as a follow-up as well.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm just thinking too, like in the CRM or like as a team, like just being able to like take like notes or you know, putting kind of little tags in there too.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, just all of you know, my brain's going a mile a minute of like all the creative ways to take that, use that, um, maybe in a proactive way.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: As well.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think, you know, again, at sort of an aggregate level, and that's where I think that we see a lot of the firms we're working with sort of move towards is what does this look like across my entire client base?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that can lead to, again, educational resources, um, marketing materials, you know, additional client experience type of services.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if they're looking across their entire firm and they see, for example, again, that most clients are scoring low on volatility composure, maybe there's some kind of, again, quarterly or whatever it might be, webinar you're providing to your clients to talk through.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to, you know, make these decisions when we're in emotional state and that sort of thing?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where we see things going as well.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking too, just conversationally, like if there were to be any points of, I don't know, maybe friction or um like kind of on the behavior side, like having that information up front would be helpful.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just knowing, you know, as you said, maybe some of their reaction.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: If they are overconfident, like what does that look like in a in a client?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And how maybe as the advisor can I respond?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or how do I know then how to respond right to clients who may be overconfident?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because I would imagine you can't approach them the same way, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as a client who has maybe more of that, dare I say, healthier kind of degree of confidence, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow, that's really, oh, that's really fascinating.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, so that I know that's a little bit about the investor profile.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we could talk probably for um at length about that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but anything else that you would say um as far as the investor profile that you think maybe is important to know?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I think just that again, as we're discussing, you know, your advisors are able to then take that insight about their client and, you know, nudge them, recommend, you know, that they take a certain path.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have a tool inside of our platform where advisors can do that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if they know, for example, that a client scores low again on that emotional piece related to investing, they can encourage them to adopt different behaviors that might help them in that regard, right?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, limit the time.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say the client, for example, um checks the markets, you know, daily or checks their portfolio, you know, hourly, something like that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how can we sort of nudge them to do that in a different way?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, it's okay to check.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe instead of checking daily or what have you, we can check twice a week and sort of moving them towards um some behaviors that will be in the long term, you know, more beneficial.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one piece as well.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's super helpful.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that you guys have several assessments and we don't have time to unfortunately dive in deep to all of them.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I know that there are two others that um I've used uh with with with clients that I find um helpful.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: The first is maybe if you could chat about is the building wealth um, yeah, that one, if you could share a little bit about that.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that you know, that's really where we started was with the building wealth assessment.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was created based on the personality factors that lead to someone being the millionaire next door.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of where, again, where data points started with that history, with the data and research that went into the millionaire next door.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was really designed to, again, two purposes.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one, certainly coaching.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can I help clients kind of adopt those wealth-building behaviors?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about, you know, high income but not yet wealthy kinds of clients, you know, how can you help them be more frugal, more confident, um, kind of care a little bit less about what their neighbors or coworkers are doing in order for them to build wealth over time.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the other purpose of that too was to identify individuals or clients within the a large firm that could be future millionaires next door.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe today they don't meet a minimum for investments, for example, or or what have you.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they may be in the future, you know, great clients to have.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it kind of served two purposes.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: We see, I would say, for individual advisors using it more like I described with coaching and things like that.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then larger firms kind of using it as a more of a identification marketing type tool as well.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know that I've used it mostly in the coaching um aspect and have found it um incredibly useful uh and and and helpful uh in many regards.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, especially I'm just thinking like with couples too, like how helpful and useful that is, because you know, by and large, like you know, I think a lot of advisors probably do work with couples and having knowing kind of where each partner stands um is important because you know, from a building wealth place, like that does impact the couple unit to being able to build wealth together.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see any common um I don't know, profiles, I guess, maybe around kind of couples with building wealth?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I you know, I think I can share kind of a use case that might be helpful in that, like with couples.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and that is if um advisors are working with a couple that maybe hasn't quite worked out their roles related to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: financial management.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that's that's often what we hear when again, when advisors are working with younger couples.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, but it doesn't have to be younger couples.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, for example, they've taken on the traditional roles, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I'm I'm making the money, I'm managing the finances, you know, whatever it might be, and you're going to do everything else.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've had advisors that use the assessments with couples.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, one member of the household who maybe wasn't managing all the finances has sort of the the you know higher level competencies to do those things.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're, they tend to be more frugal, they're confident, they're very planful, they're able to pay attention to sort of the long-term goals of the household, but also the short-term kind of actions that are happening.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're able to monitor both.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in in terms of helping that couple achieve their goals, you know, the advisor again in the case I'm thinking of specifically, you know, suggested that they maybe take on different roles in the household.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe we kind of switch things up for a while.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see how that goes.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it ended up being very successful because they just had never thought about it that way.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is a job that we're not really taught how to do, right?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And unless we grew up around you know financial planners or, you know, had parents that or caregivers that really gave us an education around finance.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's just now you know being added to high schools and things like that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have someone in the household that really has the skills, perhaps they, you know, could take that on.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one way that the tool's been used in the past.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really I think that that's really fascinating.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I could see where you know in a case like that where there is some role confusion.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Confusion's maybe the best confusion there.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Friction in the friction, yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: That could be helpful.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean certainly premarital couples come to mind.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but also I'm thinking for maybe um second marriages too.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, having maybe that information, knowing kind of what each of you are bringing into the relationship.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I could see where that would be really useful for the couple but also for the advisor there as well.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So another assessment that I know you guys are are you know kind of in the more recent um time period here that that you've released is one around wellness.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And wellness is, you know, we talk about assessments being really popular like wellness and measuring wellness is like all the rage.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And my hope is is that it's not trendy.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That it really does kind of you know make and create a permanent place uh within the within the industry.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: But how are you guys measuring wellness?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we do that again just like most of our assessments in a really comprehensive way because we know you know my my life satisfaction in general is made up of a whole host of different things, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do I feel about my relationships?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do I feel about my career?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do I feel about my finances?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we measure with the wellness inventory, we measure several different factors about seven or eight.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: We include also a specific measure that's not tied to that sort of overall wellness of advice and advisory services just as a way to sort of have a very comprehensive view of how the client is feeling.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly hope this isn't a trend as well, but I, you know, where we sort of started with this was again, like you said, we were we're hear wellness all the time.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Firms say, you know, hey we're trying to increase you know our client's wellness but there's no outcome measure to really know if the service and the advice that you're providing you yes you've got your kind of objective metrics right of wealth and so forth, investing investments, what have you but you don't have the it's more subjective touchy feely of course we as a psychometrician would say well it's not subjective because we're measuring it, but um you know really putting some methodology around let's measure this as an outcome.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It should be something that's you know part of your conversation with the client.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of where the wellness inventory was how it kind of came to be if you will.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and I think just really exciting I'm envisioning how useful that will be like as a whole but um I mean with kind of that inventory like would you recommend advisors use that on like an annual basis?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you know if wellness isn't just a one time right like a a one time thing like how how do you recommend or suggest kind of advisors be using and incorporating that?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know it certainly should be something that is measured frequently um so unlike measuring personality which we assume will be relatively stable right because it's you know well am I conscientious am I agreeable?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Those things kind of stay the same over time generally wellness doesn't and so it really is something we've designed the assessment to be used frequently and we would suggest every six months at a minimum maybe every quarter it's pretty quick something that can be automated but it does help you understand again how your clients are feeling about these specific areas everything from relationships to finances to careers and work and things like that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: But also how they feel about the service that they're receiving.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it can replace if you will those sort of annual surveys which often measure wellness right and and satisfaction but but this can really serve to to get it as deeper kind of areas in a more frequent way.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and how useful that would be I would imagine from you know a planning a planning process and you know in particular maybe for clients who are going through and maybe maybe a life transition um whether it's planned or unanticipated you know um how helpful and useful that that would be for that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know I think the other thing too and and one of the reasons and I I I can't wait to see this kind of in the future as as this continues on, but um that we felt like this was helpful for advisors and firms was to sort of understand why the client might for example be providing low ratings about the advice and the advisory services.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: All these things are of course related to some extent so if you're seeing okay this client you know is is they've rated us lower than they did you know last quarter what have you but I also see that everything else is rated lower, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there is something happening within that client's life that I'm not aware of that's happened, you know, that might be feeding that and you know impacting their their scores and things like that.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you know it's it's one way to sort of track that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and you know there's a lot of conversation just around um you know how do we make our clients stickier right how do we you know I don't like to say or want to say retain because that you know doesn't sound great, but like how do we continue to provide good service so that they don't leave for another advisor and I could see where having that satisfaction or having that information really would allow you to be or take you know kind of I mean proactive measures maybe but at least address that right sooner and quicker in case maybe there is a rupture has been a rupture that's been unintended or at least address and say hey like all your other areas of wellness aren't you know so great like what's going on?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like can I be helpful?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you know I'd love to know more.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely all of that just deepens the relationship I would imagine.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep absolutely you know being able to again identify those clients that are scoring lower kind of at the firm wide level and you know determining if there's something you know again that you can do in a personalized way or in a firm-wide way to improve that over time.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so we've talked about a few of kind of the uh data points assessments here I know that there are so many more and for those of you who are listening we'll have links um in the show notes for you to be able to access and you can go and find all of the information there on all of the assessments I encourage you to go and and and and do that.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if we you know think about maybe an advisor I'm imagining right now someone who might be saying okay this sounds really interesting I've never thought about incorporating like formal investments or maybe even it's hey we have an RTQ but that's really it and that's part of our investment policy.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: But we've not maybe considered utilizing assessments to help us understand our clients from a personality attitudes belief standpoint.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: What would you recommend?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: What advice would you would you give to advisors as far as things that they should be looking out for?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know we talked about validity at the beginning but what are some things that advisors should be looking for in an assessment?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know again I would I have to start with validity because if I I don't I'll you know someone will say I'm not a psychometrician anymore.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um yeah so I you know I think the first and foremost you do have to make sure that the assessment um is doing what it says it's doing um otherwise you're wasting your time and your money and your client's time um it's just you know there's no way around that so you know if you're um looking to um subscribe or use an assessment you want to make sure there's some technical documentation or at least a model that they base the assessment on some or some level of information about um again some statistical studies something that shows you that the test is doing what it says it's doing or if you're using something like an inventory like I shared like the wellness inventory we talked about um which is less of kind of a personality assessment again that there's some model there's some kind of science behind you know why these questions are here.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other is simply you know deciding if your firm is ready for those deeper conversations because you know again for the advisors that have been working with us they know that things will come up after the client takes the assessment and sees their report and you kind of have to decide okay are we are we ready to go there?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes some time but um you know so that's one thing to think about as well.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally you want to make sure that it fits in with the entirety of the client experience.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're already asking the client to take let's say you know three or four assessments plus they have to fill out a bunch of forms, you know, you're probably overloading them with things.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it may make sense to put that part again as part of onboarding for example it may make sense to then take assessments and move it to a different part of the client experience.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know that's something to think about as well.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I'm thinking in like um you know what people have called Meglerts kind of said the rediscovery right kind of process um or it makes me think about um like life transitions.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's been like a major life transition in my mind I'm like oh that could be a good maybe a good a good place yeah kind of for that or clients who are approaching retirement.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know maybe those could be kind of good places if like you said maybe your onboarding process or experience feels a little heavy right absolutely yeah we've seen again like the building wealth test being used with clients that have um just inherited let's say have a some sort of sudden money event um where it is going to significantly change you know their their lifestyle or could potentially do that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And making sure that those clients are prepared for that.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know if you want to maintain this and grow this, you know, there are certain habits that you're gonna have to adopt and it may be different than what you were doing before.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said with retirement, you know, really understanding a client's attitudes about retirement can help as you're particularly with couples, I think that's where we see some of the biggest differences in terms of you know households is with those what am I what is retirement going to look like and I think I shared this with you before Ashley but you know my husband and I took our retirement attitudes assessment and we realized we were not on the same page and we're in this industry.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that led to some pretty interesting conversations.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah definitely life transitions can be a time for for rediscovery.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it sounds like too that maybe even you know it's not kind of client wide it's maybe particular clients too like it's okay if it's not like a generalized kind of process.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know just maybe this client in particular based on receiving this win if all right this client in particular should take this right am I hearing you correctly there absolutely yep it can be a one-off for sure um particularly if you know again you have certain clients that are going through maybe unusual or um things that are sort of out of the norm of what your firm you know typically sees.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah I'm also wondering too oh man I'm like my brain's like just kind of on fire with like all of like possibilities too but you know thinking about maybe clients who are interested in that next generation um maybe even using some of the like I'm thinking the building wealth one in particular like how that can be just a value add to that next generation.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah maybe they're not your client right now but maybe even being able to provide some feedback or insight just there might help kind of create and start forming that relationship uh you know with them there.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of idea I've got lots of lots of thoughts and like ideas that come I've got to rein it in rein in the excitement.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so how else Sarah is data points really leading the way kind of in the industry um you know how else are you guys helping um advisors?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: So not that you have to share any like you know things that I don't know maybe our secret secrets but yeah how else are you guys helping advisors?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know I think um one of the things that we have done in the past but maybe haven't done it as consistently as as we would have liked is providing some just industry wide data related to money mindset of individuals that are taking either our marketing quizzes or the the client assessments that we offer and really helping firms, advisors, you know, institutions understand you know kind of the lay of the land related to money mindset.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I think from a from an advisor client relationship standpoint, I think one of the the biggest things that we've done and you've been such a huge part of it over the last year is institute a way to help advisors implement, understand assessments.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's through our Trove program, which is really a coaching community of other financial professionals that are gathered around assessments, but talking about a whole host of things you know that come up from those assessments.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I mean we've again I've I've been I've learned so much from you Ashley related to really again how to work through some of these really challenging issues for advisors based on the assessment results.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the things that I think we're we're most excited about.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got some dashboard type things that that are coming out in analytics that we're excited about related to technology.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know those I would say the first two are what we're really excited about.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah TRUF has been um you know I'll just say such a wonderful um also learning experience for me too and seeing advisors come together within the community to talk about clients and you know struggles around measurement or you know more than just measurement but just how do I then respond?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you know and every client is unique and different uh and so yeah that's been such a wonderful just learning um journey even for myself um too so you know I would say that assessments are I think that they are great but they are they're not the end.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're really the starting point there.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot more kind of on the other side post assessment that needs to be attended and attended to.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah I appreciate you sharing sharing all that anything else just kind of on that end.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know I think again to your point about assessments they they're sort of the beginning of the conversation and I think that that's what um even it's helping to inform like our product design and the things that we're doing too to hear from the advisors inside Trove, you know, hear what they see, you know, in terms of kind of scenarios and what's coming up and some common things that we're seeing, you know, particularly around I thought one of the most interesting conversations was around couples combining finances or not combining finances and how, you know, by understanding kind of their mindset and their attitudes that can help with that process.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for me that has been because again I am I I don't have a couch in my office.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a clinical psychologist and so you know I while I love measurement I recognize that the value of the measurement is really the starting point for the conversation or again monitoring kind of success of an advisory practice long term.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Trove's been great in terms of helping me certainly learn more.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: But also I think the advisors that are a part of it have been, you know, whether they work with data points and have a subscription or they're just trying to start out and learn I think it's been a value to them as well.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: So okay Sarah, you've gone through and shared so many great little nuggets and and and takeaways here and sadly and and and wrapping us up sadly I have to have to kind of wrap us wrap us up but I like to at the end of each episode just ask um ask our guest uh if they were to go back to when they were first starting as a professional um you know however many years ago that was that was a long time ago but if you were to go back to that time that younger version of yourself just starting uh as a professional uh what are maybe two or three pieces of advice that you would give to your younger self yeah um you know I I in terms of yeah what would I tell my younger self?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think one thing in particular and I think this is something that I do now but is really just to head towards what matters to you and just stay in that direction.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is very easy whether you're first starting out in your career or you're starting your own business to kind of get distracted by bright shiny objects, by things that seem like they matter, but they're not really they're they're they're not really the goal that you have for your life and how you want to live your life.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the that that would be my the first piece of advice I think that would have kept me out of a little bit of trouble, particularly when starting my own business was to just head towards what matters, head towards a a goal.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing just too about you know I I I've shared this story before but my again my father had worked in the financial services industry and so he would often say when I was heading when I started data points and I started talking to him about what I was doing and he's like this this industry is going to eat you alive.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um you know in some ways it has um I've learned a lot I you know uh what steel gets stronger as you hammer it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um I think that I would have recommended particularly for this industry but no matter what you're doing is just to recognize that um and this may be naive early on right that everyone has a motive everyone has a reason for talking with you for for working with you, whatever it might be.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um you know just to kind of check what that is and and kind of understand either, you know, not only for empathy to understand where that person is coming from, but also to make sure that you know they're not kind of that they're they're aligned with that that goal that I mentioned right that they're kind of heading in the same direction.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing I would have shared with myself.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then just lastly from a business perspective be able to do everything in your business first and then hire for those skills later.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say that is as a psychologist who started a tech firm, um I probably would have you know maybe taught myself how to code and done it myself early on instead of hiring someone first.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: So particularly for small businesses, for um you know kind of solopreneurs that are starting out I would recommend being able to do everything.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not that you have to do it long term but being able to do just about everything in your business before you start either hiring or you know kind of making a go of it.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I love all of this and some pretty pretty great advice uh yeah I think just kind of across the board.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that and and and for being a part of the conversation today.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you could maybe just real quick take a minute to share where can people find you if they want to learn more, if they want to reach out.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely so uh datapoints.com is our website so you can find out all about our assessments there.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach out to me via LinkedIn or Twitter.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to connect with anybody there.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: But otherwise datapoints.com or the trovecommunity.com that's where we we live um in our little neighborhood yep well for all of you out there tuning in thank you for allowing Sarah and I into your ears and into your mind today until next time keep planning keep growing and keep going beyond thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
• 45:59
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• 46:05
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• 46:10
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• 46:16
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