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#78 - Estate Planning Evolution with FinTech Leader Tim White · Only Fee-Only

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: How's it going?
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Everyone?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the only fee only podcast and, as always, thank you for being here.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited for this episode and that all of you get the chance to listen to this episode, because we got to talk to you one and only, tim White, who is the chief partnership officer and co-founder at wealthcom, where they are changing the game when it comes to estate planning, and the biggest thing that stood out about Tim, honestly, was just how cool, outgoing and funny was to talk to.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Before wealthcom, he was the chief partnership officer at emailage, which was acquired by Lexis Nexus for a nice sum of money, and so we dove into that a little bit but really talked about you know what he's doing, what his vision is, what wealthcom is up to and how they contribute a lot of their success to having very important people and influencers in the industry on board with them to create an incredible team.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, here is Tim White on the only fee only podcast.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: What's up everyone?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of the only fee only podcast.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Peter Travelo.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I'm here with my co-hosts Brock Buckles and Josh Passler.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: How are you guys doing today?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Doing well, man Doing well.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Good to be here.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Likewise.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Good to be here, man, awesome man.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And today we have Tim White on, who is co-founder and chief partnership officer at wealthcom.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And, funny enough, tim, josh and I all bumped into each other at the nitrogen conference in Aventura, florida, in the end of 2023.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And actually that's kind of what sparked Josh coming onto the team at BC brokered, so it's kind of cool seeing everyone come on.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: But yeah, tim, for those who don't know who you are, you want to give a quick overview of who you are and what wealthcom does.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, no problem and great to be on this podcast.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Guys, excited to chat with you today.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my name is Tim White.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: I'm the chief partnership officer at wealthcom.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Co-founder of wealth.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: A little bit of my background Come from the FinTech space.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: A little bit of an origin story to wealth is actually myself.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: Two other founders of the company, as well as our executive chairman, come from a venture that we built about 2012 that sold in the large financial institutions of FinTech platform.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: It was using machine learning and AI and what it was doing Peter was actually assessing risk.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: So think about any time there's an account onboarding with Citibank, bank of America, chase, santander, hsbc.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: They would call us in real time and we would come back with a risk score and say, hey, peter's great Privacy transaction.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: You know Brock is a known criminal.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: You know let's go ahead and get transaction going for it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Block.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Josh, let's send Josh a manual review.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: Let's just take a little deeper look into Josh.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but, but yeah, then we ended up built the company's global company.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: It was a fun culture.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: We sold the company to Lexis Nexus for $500 million back in just at the beginning of COVID.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: And you know, the liquidity event happened, made a lot of people wealthy, a lot of a lot of the team members lives changed, right.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: And during that experience of the liquidity event and also just as perfect convergence also of just the fact that we hit with COVID you know we're all looking at setting up our state plans right, there was changes that happened in our lives.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: That's the complexion changes.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Some of us moved states and so we started to kind of pick around and look at what was available out there and realized there was some interesting technology, but there wasn't this layer of innovation and it wasn't really exploring the possibilities, especially when you think about you know that today and using machine learning and using AI.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: And so that was where we actually created the vision document at wealthcom.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: And you know, from there we started to do a little bit more research and actually the document itself said wealthcom.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: We didn't have the domain at that time.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: There's a little bit of a story there too, but but yeah.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: So we ended up, you know, doing a research of 10,000 households actually we call this state of the estate and there it informed us we like okay, how are we going to design a go to market strategy for wealth?
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: Two main factors for somebody to set their state plan.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: One is their family member, right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: So my dad set up and my mom set up a state plan, my brother unlikely to do the same thing.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Or the encouragement influence from a financial advisor.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: And so we looked at those two and said, look it, the go to market strategy through a family member, that's tough, right, and I figured that one out.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: But but go to market strategy servicing financial advisors, there is an opportunity to unlock.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: And from there we ended up hiring on our kind of rounding out a co founding team, as Danny Lorfink yeah, he comes from Goldman Sachs and just brought an incredible team from Goldman but other financial advisors to help lead our product.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: And here we are today.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: It's been an exciting journey.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's, that's super cool.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I love that man.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So I have to ask you, what was it like going through that?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff, but the liquidity event, I mean that had to be a pretty cool thing, right?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: You're like we built this thing, we're selling it for $500 million.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Like, where's your brain when you're going through that process and it finally happens before you start getting the engine going again to get to the wealthcom?
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: Not to deviate too much, brock on the storytelling here exactly getting into the weeds Stressful, stressful, stressful.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: We actually we had so much inbound interest, especially on the partnership side, and the relationships I was managing and my team managed.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: The relationship with LexisNexis ultimately acquired us, but we had so much inbound that was happening.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: We ended up running a process with FT partners and they're one of the best, if not absolutely the best, in the payments and also fintech space, and the process took about nine months, and so there's a lot of obviously different offers that are hitting the table.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: In addition to the dog and pony show, a lot of management meetings, things of that nature, are flying around.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: But we're trying to do this.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: It's stealth, right.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Because we didn't want to distract the company.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: So there's just a few of us working aggressively on it.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: And what happened?
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: My brother I'm going to TBA here a little bit, my brother's in the clothing business and he started to tell me about the situation that was happening in manufacturing, specifically in China.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: And he was talking about what was to be COVID.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: And I'm listening to him.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like I don't want to hear this.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Like, stop calling me Troy, I don't want to know anymore about it, you're overreacting.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: But I was at an event, the merger agreement signed, but the transaction hasn't been complete yet COVID's firing up.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: And then you're just, oh my gosh, freaking out.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Like, is this whole thing going to fall apart?
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Right, we're right in the midst of a pandemic.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Now there's a lockdown that's going to happen.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: So, needless to say, I mean, if we were a little bit more forward thinking, understanding that our online transactions increased, right, the whole digital world changed, right, and so it was actually a plus for our business, but it was really scary times of the pandemic.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: So I have to say like that, that was a stressful time, a lot of great memories.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: I, you know, I probably going to have some like cardiac issues later on in life as a result of it, but it was fun, guys, it was a great time.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So what would you say were some of those main lessons that you learned from that first building of your first company, that you were like, hey, you know what, on wealthcom, let's make sure we hit these bullet points and let's make sure we avoid these.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: You know what were some of those?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Just from the entrepreneurial side of things.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: You know, I would say this like I think the most important thing is culture.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: At the end of the day, it's about the people, and I know that seems very cliche and it's probably slightly generic to say that, but it is.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: I love the culture that we built at the company email age, but we wanted to do it better at wealthcom and now fast forward wealth's in the market.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: We have a vibrant team.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: Now we're in a remote culture which is a little bit different, dynamic right Than being in office.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: Some of its own pluses but also challenges.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: But, like I'd have to say, that's one thing I'm really excited about is just the people I work around and that everybody is really mission focused and everyone really has their back and it's just awesome.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: So I would say anyone that's starting a business, don't neglect culture 100%.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: I would say you know a couple of lessons learned.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: You know that's a tough one, because if we had a successful exit right, I don't know how to say, but ultimately I think it's the pro and con of culture Don't neglect it.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Think about your people, Always focus there, Always hire people that, first and foremost, can work well on a team, not just the smartest person, because the smartest person can sometimes create some dynamics that are just unhealthy and can actually be a negative, and those are some things you always have to really unpack when you're thinking about building out your team.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: So what I know when you said, when we got the wealthcom domain that you kind of like, like was it was that a, what was that process like?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Because obviously I'm sure somebody wanted, wanted, some money for that one.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: You know, I always saw the story Like I'm like, yeah, you know, I was just on GoDaddy and just one day I'm like $1,000.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: No, um, yeah, it was actually interesting.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: You know our executive chairman, but the former CEO and founder of the previous company, ray Carvalho, he's so laser focused and you know he's a risk taker and you know you need that kind of person to really, you know, be leading you right, somebody who's out there and very entrepreneurial.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: But when he actually, you know, was like hey, look, we have a stack of names there's about I think there was like five names.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: I want wealthcom, we're going to get wealthcom.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: We just have back like we are going to be wealthcom, my's will just get tattooed.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: It's going to happen.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: There was a clean domain and we searched it out and, yes, it was absolutely a big investment in pretty penny, no question about it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: But you know, here we are today.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: One thing I did tell my, my fellow co-founders that are in the day to day operation I'm like if we fail with wealthcom, I mean that's bad.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say like that's humiliating, like there'll be a Harvard business journal review talking about this domain purchase and the failure.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: But it's an asset.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: You can always resell it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: The domain itself, yeah.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: But I'll tell you well one, we're not failing, and it is right, there is no option.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: There is no option.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Burn the boats, as they say.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Let's go with wealthcom.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: One thing that was funny, though there is an article I think it was 2009 in the Walls Street Journal, but it was in the Wall Street Journal, I'm not sure about the day, if it was 2009 or another date but it said who is going to buy wealthcom, and I reached out to the guy.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Now he's an editor at CNBC.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: I'm like I'll tell you who bought wealthcom.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: He never responded to the email, but I tried.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love it.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: He had something.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I had something.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like what's this?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Go ahead Pete.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Go ahead Ellen.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So I mean like let's talk about just like the start of it and building it through COVID, right?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a lot of similarities that I'm seeing between your business and here at BC Brokerage.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Like you know, starting off in a virtual workplace, you know kind of having an MVP, a minimum viable product.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Like let's talk about what some of those like first early months were, maybe the first six to 12 months, and maybe how the business plan has maybe changed a little bit or the marketing plan has changed a little bit because you found a better niche or you know communication medium.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Like let's just talk about what the first phase of the business has been like so far.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: You know one thing, peter, I love that question.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: One thing you know I'd say to other entrepreneurs is, first of all, there's no sacred cows right Always be iterating, always be able to go with the next best idea and change right and to evolve, and I think that's the right environment to create a healthy environment.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: And so, once you have some new learnings, sometimes it's important to pivot, and I think we made a thousand pivots since then.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: But there are small incremental pivots, whether it was like how we thought about our go-to-market strategy as far as, like pricing and packaging, or, you know, some pivots in regards to how we thought about wealthcom as a brand, like do we talk about ourselves wealth because we are technically, you know, self-ink, or do we lean in because we have the domain wealthcom?
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: And so you know, we never were like stuck with a single decision.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: If we evolved, there was some new findings, some interaction with a client, like we will change right, we will always try to improve ourselves, and I think that's one thing since, like the beginning, I think, on the MVP and launching the product first of all, yes, virtual environment, pluses and cons.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: The first phase of wealthcom was heavy on product right, the product team and engineers.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Quite frankly, engineers work really well, you know, oftentimes in their environment, in isolation, working on the code, and the one thing that I think that was a big positive for us is that we were able to bring because it wasn't a competing business some of those team members and so they had familiarity, they worked together.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: So I think that was really helpful for us to really speed things along in the development side.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: You know, as far as, like when we think about our go-to-market, there was some other angles that we were thinking as well, outside of just the advisory space, and we are quickly to close those doors because I think what Pro and Con or one thing that you mentioned earlier kind of lessons learned, is.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: One lesson to learn is that, like, focus is everything you know, especially you know, in those beginning stages you have a lean team, like you've got to be focused, and I think that's one thing that we did really well.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, we were just like hey, shut out all the noise, let's not listen to anybody else, let's not go direct to consumer, let's just focus for financial advisors and let's bring on the best of the best part of our product team and let's listen to our partners and our clients and solve those specific problem statements.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Because when you start it's not just like, hey, let's hire out a more robust sales organization to go out for all these different verticals.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: It's the stress that you put on the engineering team because now you have competing demands.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Right Now, with us being so focused financial advisors, most of the needs that we're solving for are universal right.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: If we're developing something interesting for this particular firm, oftentimes that will end up touching all the other firms.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Now, not always the case, because the complexity of the client may change, but often it is.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, certainly it is compared to us trying to go direct to consumer, us trying to go after, let's say, employed benefits or something of that nature.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I love that I think that's some of the most Go ahead, Pete.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I was just going to say as far as testing it and having opinions and testimonials from different advisors, I know that you guys have built out a financial planner advisory board.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I mean Thomas Kupelman comes to mind, I've seen Costelli, Tyrone, Samantha Russell.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Are you really getting feedback from leaders in the industry and just testing in the overall product or what really drives the future growth, too, of wealthcom?
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: Well, we are really honestly really fortunate to have built a relationship with Thomas and he has been such an impact player to our organization and I consider him absolutely an extension of the team.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: We met Thomas actually at Snappy Crackens event and I was there with Danny.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: He's a fellow co-founder.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: We had a list of people that we wanted to talk to and Thomas was like up with that list.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: We wanted to talk to Thomas.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I remember when I first Thomas you could tell his side of the story.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: I remember the first time bumping into Thomas at Snappy Crackens and I'm like, hey, thomas, he looked at me like who the hell is this weirdo?
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: He's like.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, I don't want to interrupt your conversation but when you have a chance to talk.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: But we ended up connecting, talking.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: He went out to dinner with us and then he ended up using wealthcom as a platform, as a product, with his clients and he reached out to us and he's like look it, I get a ton of demand coming in from a variety of different technology vendors for me to be part of their organization or endorse their product.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: I never thought in a million years I'd be actually asking a technology provider if I could be part of it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: But I would love to come in and potentially come in as maybe a head of community for wealth.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: If you guys have ever thought about it or opened to the idea and model, something similar to what Desarté and before Desarté's Iron Goat had all tripped and we'd ever thought about it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: To be honest with you, it didn't cross our minds.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: But how can you say no?
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: And Thomas came on board and just brought in the most stellar group of council members that you just listed off.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: They've been incredibly impactful for our organization.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: They get beta of our product right, not only from like.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: How do we think about the technology innovation?
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: How do we think about positioning, how do we think about pricing and packaging, so they influence a variety of different areas within our organization.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Included in that, though, even something in a way like our strategic, you know, council advisors, excuse me.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: So we have our council members and we have our strategic advisors.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: I think there's two different groups there council members you just mentioned strategic advisors, which is Tyrone Ross, joanne Bradford, and then we have Brian Hamburger, and then we just announced and really excited about the announcement that happened last month with Jamie Hopkins.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: You know, I just feel like we have some of the, you know, premier power players within the industry really influencing, you know, our organization, not only from a technology standpoint, but you know what's Horizon 2 and Horizon 3 of Wealthcom.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so dive into that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: How did you see that really affect?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Like, what ideas were they bringing to the table that you guys have been able to implement?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: We were like, man, this is great because you guys are building a product, right, you're thinking about it, you're working in the business, working on the business, all these things but these are advisors and people in different parts of the industry that are all really great at what they do, respectively, right, yeah, so what were some of those kind of changes that you guys were able to implement, or kind of pivots, as you said, bringing some of those people on?
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: Well, one of the coolest things we have a Slack channel.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys use Slack as a platform.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: There's other providers there.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: They're in our Slack channel.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: So when, if they run into a client, let's say, hey, this would be cool, or we ran into this hiccup, like literally you'll see in minutes that hit on our product teams.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: You know Slack channel that goes to engineering right and then evaluating and then making those changes.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: I mean I wouldn't say like in real time, but darn close to real time, which is awesome.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: They've been really helpful too is like how we thought about pricing and packaging and some of our modules and I don't want to go like totally to end the weeds there, but it's been extremely, extremely valuable.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Also, how we thought about the advisory portal, which is really where the advisor lives and breathes, and like thinking about like what type of access do they want to that data?
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: They helped inform a lot of the visualization report that's created.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: So you think about today, an existing plan is all that legal jargon.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: It's a complex document.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: I am like an extrovert guy.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: I have my strengths and weaknesses.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: A super weakness of mine is going to be peering through a legal document.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm the guy Christmas Day opening up like my son's gifts and like we're going to build this thing and I throw the instructions and I'm like we're weighing in this.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: So, for us to like be able to create a visualizer report with all the flow charts and then, like layman terms, descriptions and definitions, has been like such an awesome innovation, which advisors are loving.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: But how we thought about it and how we've innovated there has definitely been informed by Thomas and the team and everyone that's been included on our strategic advisory board and in council.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love that, josh.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Let's get a question in there for you.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about branding, marketing, colors, whatever you want, yeah, we've got a good internet connection we're stable.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I hope so.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I hope so.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Just a smile and nod if I freeze.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: The funny thing is we just did a BC brokerage refresh of their brand and we changed the colors up and as we were, as I was looking at different color palettes, I found one and I thought this is the one.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: It is beautiful, look at this.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: And I kept playing with it, with the logos and everything, and then it hit me.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I was like this is wealthcom's logo palette color palette.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I was like damn it.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: And so I was like nope, I was like we can't use that Next one and I was like man, I just love the colors of wealthcom so much.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: But going into, I guess, like the marketing aspect, you got those strategic advisors, which is incredibly intelligent.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And then, as you guys are stepping up your marketing game and being almost like the leaders of estate planning in the industry, I wonder do you guys have any plans to do what trust and will just did, which was have Matthew Stafford and his wife in a commercial?
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Do you guys plan to like one of them and, like I don't know, get a better quarterback?
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Or better, athlete.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: No marketing budget.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: I would break that up in two parts.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: One gosh you are awesome at what you do, by the way, thank you, thank you.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he has a great eye static design.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: I love everything that you produce.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: I'm a huge fan of yours, for sure.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: One of the things that we invested really early on was hey, we bought wealthcom and we went through a variety of different like creative sessions and we brought in I wouldn't say, like you know, you got your A branding companies, you have your B and you have your C.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: So we were kind of in that C Terry, trying to be careful around costs and things of that nature.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: We just weren't happy with it.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: And then we made a big investment in partnership with Clay, the out of San Francisco.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: So Clay is absolutely incredible, but it was a big investment both time, energy and dollars to help us really think about the aesthetic and everything else, and so they were the ones that really set the foundation of wealthcom from the branding.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: And looking back, when I'm at these events and I see all the different vendors and I look at wealthcom branding, I'm like we made a really wise decision there.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: That was really good money spent, and so kudos to Clay.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Your other question about trust and will, and Matthew and his wife.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: First of all, I want to say this I think the world of Cody and his team, I think what they're doing in a direct to consumer space, is awesome.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I think it's a win for everybody.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: One thing I always stress, because I think I had somebody's getting these conversations I don't want our competitors to fail.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: It is bad for the category.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: This category is so fresh and innovative that we just can't have that happen, and so when I see things like that, I think this is awesome.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: It's awesome for us.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: So, thinking about what we just said earlier, their focus is in the direct to consumer space.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I think setting up basic will, some more simple documentation.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: They got it and they're going after those households and I think they've been really innovators there.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: I think what makes us unique now, will we ever get a Matthew to join us or to search for the next quarterback, or like Tom and Kelsey on the website.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Kelsey's doing a ton of commercials that you might as well do.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: I know you like.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Matthew Stafford.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: But what about a seven time Super Bowl champion quarterback now?
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, or like switch sports like you know, outside of like both, the conflict that's to the MMA fighter you know, yeah, yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You know, who's the other?
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: They are tiger, son.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: You know, for us it's not about like getting in front of direct to consumers with an athlete as much to promote the brand.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: It's talking to the advisors and so, yeah, matthew may resonate for that household.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: That's, you know, sees that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: But we're striving towards, like, how do we convince, you know, peter, how do we convince Brock to want to engage with Welpcom and I think, having like Thomas being part of it, you know Justin, anna, samantha, you know Tyrone Ross to Sarte.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: In addition to that, obviously, jamie Hopkins, I think, is much more powerful to the markets that were dedicated to going after.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: But I have to tell you like I'm super excited to see that ad go out for sure, yeah, that's awesome.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I know some of your you know marketing pillars, if you will.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, you were heavy on the conference travel train last year.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I remember when we were talking you were like dude, I'm exhausted, yeah, you know.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: So that's like one of your marketing.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: You know Copleman and like that advisory, like B2B, a little bit of podcasting, like what are you guys seeing working for you?
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: And like what were some marketing things that might have not worked or that you were like, eh, you know what not worth the energy.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: It's.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: You know the events, so events were critical at the previous company as well, right, but we had like 40 events globally that we're going to and probably five of them really produced.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: You know value, but you never know and it's important to be there and oftentimes it's always justified as like well, it's branding right At the end of the day.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: There's no attribution we could like pull from it Like $100,000.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: It was worth it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: It was branded, they saw us, but I do think I think what's that?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: They saw us there, I guess.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, they saw us, right, I think?
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: they're like I fucked into the guy when we were having.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: You know we had to break up such a.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: You know, I do think events are really important.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Just, we got to be out there.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: We need to be shaking the hands and meeting advisors in a more intimate one-on-one setting and breaking the virtual walls and zoom, yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: And one of the things that I push as well to my team is that we need to travel, like we need to get on planes, we need to meet our partners, we need to take them out to dinner, cause we need to know that there's people behind the technology, like one of the biggest, like competing, or one of the biggest challenges that we face is not us.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: It's the last bad bender interaction they have Right, amazing, yeah, the last shitty technology deployment that just happened, right, where, like, that person as a program manager got burned.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: So we need to show that dedication that something goes awry.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: We'll take that 3 am phone call and like really prove it out and they need to believe it, the space needs to believe it how we're building our business and success.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: We had an absolutely incredible year, incredible year, last year, and it's because of the word of mouth, it's advisors talking to other advisors, 100%.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: So you know, business building off of business in that way is critical.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: So I'd say those two points are big areas of focus for wealthcom.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Love the podcast circuit, like getting out there.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: I think people are.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I'm going to say this love what you guys are doing.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: I'm a huge podcast person.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Like I am like Spotify comes back to me and they're like you are of, like the 1% yeah.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: That's how much you listen.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Like ridiculous you know.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I wake up, I'm listening to podcasts right away, coffee, you know, workout, gym, mountain biking, folding laundry, doing all like to do lists that my wife has on a weekend, like going to the grocery store when my these things like constantly I can still hear, you know, still communicate kind of dorky, but they work right, I love it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: You're maximizing everything.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Maximization, you got it, you got it.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: There's so much stuff out there to learn, you know and I like the long format.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: right, it's great stuff.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: So but outside of that going into next year, I think just kind of still growing out, I don't think there is like a specific, like crazy thing.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: You know, look it, maybe next quarter we'll have, like John Jones, do a commercial for us.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: On the Octagon.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know, I'm just kidding, that's amazing.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: What would you have him say?
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: He's like knock out your will before we knock you out yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Or something like that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Gosh, there you go.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: Brilliant, you got him.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: You have that magic.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Just thinking about this.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I mean in theory.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: You know, you guys know the website like Cameo.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Is that the one that you pay abroad?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you get a commercial from a celebrity, you know, and just be like.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Yo give me this 15 second sound bite you know, and then have your production team.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I mean you could wing it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: I mean it's kind of funny how that works.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, getting a spokesperson would be really funny.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: I think you're loosely saying celebrity.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's that kind of cuss right, yeah, you know, a D list, a D list, a D list for sure.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no for sure, except, yeah, a D list.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: But so what are you doing, man?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: It's Tim Y, obviously associated with theweldcom.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Like you're a busy guy.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It's very evident that you're a busy guy.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: What are you doing to keep yourself centered and keep your head from spinning too much?
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: It's one I'm really into Right now.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: My new challenge this year is trying to figure out if I can lower my resting heartbeat.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: I'm so into all the bios and health and I started getting into it last year Just because I was really gearing up to run a marathon.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: I had an injury but started to fine tune things like diet and trying to figure out performance there, so I'm kind of addicted into that, and so that's one area of my mind.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Outside, I think of life as really three pillars.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: There's your family, which is most important.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: Your passions for me is work, and then, of course.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: Then there's the health thing the health side.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: I've been getting into mountain biking quite a bit Living up here in Scottsdale.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: There's just awesome trails.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: I live right next to 250 miles of incredible desert terrain mountains, so that's been an absolute blast.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: And then I actually got to.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: I'm getting a go rock best.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: Have you guys rocked?
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: I haven't ever rocked?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I've seen no, I have not rocked.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: We hike, but I've never rocked.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: I haven't rocked, but I mean, everyone's talking about rock.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Josh, I've seen your head shake.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Have you rocked before?
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it gets intense.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: It gets intense At first you're fine, but if you're carrying 20 or 40 pounds, over time it's just going to compound and it's just going to feel heavy.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And especially if you're going uphill right, if you're walking on hills it can get to it it gets to the point where your arms just you know you're walking and your arms are moving.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: And then towards the middle to the second half, you're holding onto the rock and you're just like, oh my god, like let this be over.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: You're sweating so much.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: And then when you like, I have like the vest, a 40 pound vest, and so when I I was like trying to lift it over my head after like a five mile walk and I was just walking, I was not doing anything else and man, I just I felt so light but lifting it over your head and putting it down, I almost like fell over.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, this is, but it is, it is fun.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: It is crazy fun, cause you can literally just walk and, I mean, get your ass kicked at the same time.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: So it's pretty fun, don't?
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: really know that.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: That's great, that's crazy.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Here I had to buy in a 30 pound weight.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: I got chicken legs.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Man, like that's just the reality, like I don't know if I'm going to.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: I should have gone a 20 pound or 10 pound.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: I'm like you know what.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go with 30.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: You know, since you're really into like the biomechanics of like your body and everything, I would look up a Lane Norton.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: Lane, yeah.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I just hired one of this coaches for myself for the whole year, so that'll be a lot of fun.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: No, I oh, send me the details there.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I will send the.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, guys, we're going down a rabbit hole, a rabbit hole I apologize.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Back to you though, man.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: So no, appreciate the time.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Back to the podcast.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, that's how it happens right.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: The next thing we know we're going to be talking about big butt.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: We're going to be talking about aliens.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you think they're real, you think they're real.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, but so yeah, I mean love everything that you guys are doing.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: It's been amazing For people that want to follow along with you personally.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Where can they follow along?
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: I.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: They can just connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Reach out, I always love to expand my network.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that's it.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: And Brock, to answer your question, yes, I do believe in aliens, yep, same, so let's go All right, yeah, I love it All right.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time today.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: I think Peter's.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think Peter's fully there yet, he's not tinfoil yet, but you know, no, I'm not scared of my GPS coordinates and you know the Russians aren't tracking me, so we're good right now.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you, we'll have a good one We'll be in touch.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, guys, thank you so much.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Have a great one and have a successful 2024.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Likewise man.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.