Latest / Financial Planner Search / Leaving Product Sales Behind with David D'Albero & Carmine Coppola | Financial Planner Search

Transcript

Leaving Product Sales Behind with David D'Albero & Carmine Coppola | Financial Planner Search · Financial Planner Search

• Gregory Wilnau: David Carmine, how are you guys doing today? David D'Albero: I good, Gurleg. How are you? Carmine Coppola: How you doing, Gregory Wilnau: I'm Carmine Coppola: Greg? Gregory Wilnau: I I'm doing awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time. Looking forward to chatting with you. To get started, why don't David D'Albero: I think. Gregory Wilnau: you guys just take a moment and kind of explain what you do and tell us a little bit about your firm. David D'Albero: Sure. So we are Strata Capital is the name of our firm. we have been in business. well, we we've we've been in business carbon I before Strata Capital started. We work for some other people. but Strata Capital itself, we started back in 2018. And the whole way through we've just kind of worked with folks that work for Fortune 500 companies, helping them with you know, you know, with their financial planning and wealth management, some tax strategies, stuff like that. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. how did the how did you guys the two of you meet? How did you get in b in business together? David D'Albero: Why don't you get that one called? Yeah. Carmine Coppola: It's interesting. so we both started out at the MetLife Premier Client Group, which was MetLife's like financial planning and wealth advisory arm. So Dave started, I think four years ahead David D'Albero: Two Carmine Coppola: of me. David D'Albero: thousand eleven was my first year. Carmine Coppola: And my first year is twenty fifteen, so yeah, four years ahead. joined the firm right out of college. Dave was in the office and we met. We didn't work together right away. We were very friendly with each other, you know, the younger younger guys in the office. And then over time, you know, we kinda just graduated toward toward each other 'cause we had the same values in terms of how we do planning, how we care about clients, who we wanted to serve essentially. And Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: that wasn't the norm, you know, it was it's only eleven years ago, but it was a lot different back then. So Gregory Wilnau: For sure. Carmine Coppola: so we kind of just gravitate toward each other and then here we are, you know, eleven years later, still kicking. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. So I wasn't expecting to to go this way, but I I I want to touch on it really quick before we start talking about your clients. you mentioned common values. what are some of those common values that you guys share? What was the water cooler talk like? What were some of the things that inspired you and that you guys were found that you were both passionate about? Oftentimes I find the answer to this question kind of helps cluster people's thinking around different values and themes that helped with the founding of the company. But are there anything is there anything that stand out? to you guys? Anything that d drew drew you to each other or common values that you just started talking about. David D'Albero: Yeah. me give you so let me give you a little bit about the environment we were in and how different we were than the environment we're in. So when I started, the idea was like sell the client on a product and then move on. And that was that was that was the discussion. So like karm came in, that is still I think prevalent because let's call it what it is. When you have culture like that, sales culture, like turning that around is like turning a battleship. Like it takes Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: time. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: Ow, we immediately again, that was like our common I guess like the common thread between like we were just like, no, we want planning, we like fiduciary planning, we like the idea of being working for the client, not for the company. So, like that was that common value for us was like, hey, we have like we both care about the client. We're not looking, I'm not worried about the revenue that it produces. And that's what at the time the firm was really like they'd incentivized that behavior, and that was not something that we liked. So I think we kinda had a common enemy almost. Gregory Wilnau: Mm. David D'Albero: Right. And that that like brought us together in a in a big way. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. So you guys didn't like that environment, the vibe that that created, it sounds like. And that was something that you two agreed on pretty aggressively. Carmine Coppola: We we always said you do the right thing by people, you become an expert in what you're doing, and the money will always come secondary. Like if you do a good job Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Carmine Coppola: for everybody, you care about who you're working with, that money is secondary. We're we're here for to serve a purpose. We're in the service business at the end of the day. And I think that's if I had to sum up in one word, that's really what it is that w that we that we share. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you guys started having conversations. You're like, Hey, we're pretty much on the same page here. Did anything else inspire you to go independent specifically and start your own firm? Does anything stand Carmine Coppola: boy. Gregory Wilnau: out? David D'Albero: Yes. So what happened was right around the time, it's really crazy. So we were we were actually standing. There was a row of cubicles. Just picture this. And we're standing in the row, we're looking up at a TV, and we see that MetLife had sold us to Mass Mutual. We had no idea that was happening. We saw Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. David D'Albero: it on TV. And what happened shortly after that, like they came in, they fired. I mean, they just got rid of all the management, all the people. And they were the guys that took over were very much, they were very clear like we sell core product here. We sell whole life insurance policies, we sell long term care district. That's what we do here. If you do investment business, that's what they called it, or if you do planning, that is you should drop. I I kid you not, the conversation was had that to drop those licenses and focus on core product. So Gregory Wilnau: Wow. David D'Albero: that was the moment when we looked at each other and we just like, we gotta get out. Gregory Wilnau: Wow. So in other words, more of what you guys didn't like anyways, in more of that. Yeah. David D'Albero: Yeah. Yeah, like they like any like I my god, like they they went in, they they doubled up on on the core product thing for and for us, we were like, Nope. So so we started Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, hard pass, yeah. Carmine Coppola: It gets better though. I say it gets better, so we left that environment. We went somewhere else and this the second place we went to had everything built good, like we can do do planning the way we wanted to, we can do the investments the way we wanted to. But over time, so we're talking over a five year period, the rules slowly changed and they never were in our favor. It was always geared more towards sell more core product, do more of this. S you work for the company, not for your clients. That was essentially what they were saying. And Dave and I refused to do that. So the only people that we were hurting were ourselves. Like there was one point where we actually had probably the best six month stretch ever in terms of like getting new clients. And me personally, my income or the assets I had under management at that time, I think it tripled and my income went down because I refuse to sell someone a life insurance policy just because they hit a goal. So that was the second step and finally it got so bad we're like, you know what? We're tired of all this. Like we want to do things our way. Let's the next leap we're doing is not under another company, it's independence. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. Love it, love it, love it. David D'Albero: Yeah. Yeah. It just imagine being in an environment for a minute. Just imagine. And this is by the way, like anyone watching this, it's it it it's more prevalent than you think. Like every one of the if a company manufactures a product, then the person that they have sell their product ultimately is an advisor that they hire that's on their payroll essentially, in one way or another, and they end incentivize the sale of those products. That often creates, I'm gonna call it like company goggles, so to speak, like beer goggles. And you find that a lot of the recommendations are centered around their product mix. That for us was it felt so gross. It just didn't feel good. Like that's not what we signed up for. And again, it always comes back to the fact that again, if you were if you want to be an advisor, truly be an advisor or planner to your client work for the client and not for the company, you have to be independent. There is no other way at this point, at least from our experience. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. No, I love that. I love the conviction that that's there. All right, let's let's talk a little bit about the people that you guys work with, your clients, those those that that you you serve. You mentioned Fortune five hundred companies, but maybe you could take a moment to describe the kind of person who who comes to you. Bring us into their world. Carmine Coppola: I would say the kind of person that comes to us is they're working for some corporation. They're usually higher, they're the VP level maybe and higher. They're earning good money. They have a complex benefit package. So they have a lot of questions about that because you know companies don't make it easy to understand, and they certainly don't give you the resources to help you out either. So they have questions on that. Because they're making good money, they have tax problems, right? More money, more problems. So they have tax problems, or they always think they're paying too much in taxes. Not to mention they're usually family oriented, so usually married, usually have kids. Not everyone, but they have that mentality and they have goals, right? They wanna retire, they wanna do stuff for their family, buy a second home, whatever it may be. And they've done really well because they're making good money and they don't know how to handle all of the investments they have either. So those are usually like the pillars we see. It's really combining like the investments, the tax strategy, and the actual planning and goal setting all together. And kind of wrapping it as one systematic approach. I think that that's that's where we saw. David D'Albero: They're generally good. Yeah, they're good delegators. So like they're people in positions, usually in management positions where they're good delegators. They're the kind of folks who are like, I mean, again, all of our clients, we have clients who are CFAs that are so incredible. I mean, they just they manage money. We have clients who Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, yeah. David D'Albero: manage money and they come to us, which is really, really flattering. I make the joke they've probably forgotten more at this point than we know. Like they've been Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. David D'Albero: in like 40 years in the game, right? but again, there's a trust factor there. I think they realize that we, you know, that. And we've designed the entire practice around those folks. Like we're not a do-it-all kind of practice. So it's like, Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. David D'Albero: I, you know, if if we have some clients that are that are, you know, business owners that are that have come in referrals because they're the brother of one of our top clients, like that to us, of course, we don't, you know, that is something where we look to help those people. But our practice is truly designed around Fortune 500, you know, professionals who have these issues. And that are looking for a level of coordination that they cannot find at the bigger box firms because those firms are very restricted in the type of advice they can give. So they're looking for again that true comprehensive coordination across their tax arm, their investments, their planning. Sometimes their attorneys, maybe they have some outside real estate investments that we're helping, you know, we're helping them along with some strategy there again with their accountant. That is really who we the people that we work with. It's they they're good delegators. They want us to basically summarize everything down to where they can make really good decisions and quickly. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: All right. And and and trust us to bring our expertise to help them do that. Gregory Wilnau: And they're really busy, right? Like they are super busy. David D'Albero: You're super busy. Yeah. Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: I love that. So I mean you guys have a very specific type of person who comes to you with some very specific pluck problems. What I always like to do at this point is I just want to understand more about like what's going on in their minds, what they're you know, what's kind of keeping them up at night. You mentioned some of the questions that that they ask, you know, they want help with tax strategy, goal setting, David D'Albero: Exactly. Gregory Wilnau: wrapping that into an overarching plan. but Since I don't talk to your clients, obviously, what are some of the questions that they might typically ask when they meet with you for the first time? What's keeping them up at night? Do you have like a list of top two to three most common questions or concerns that they they mentioned the first time that they that they meet with you guys? What's top of mind for them? Carmine Coppola: I'd probably say the well the question everyone asks, am I on track compared to everyone else? And you know, doesn't really matter because it's it's their situation. So they asked that. But I think more importantly, most people that come to us, they never think they have enough to do the things they want to do, like let's just use retirement as an example. Or what or what would happen if if they lost their job? Like and retirements earlier than expected. Like, am I okay? Am I how am I able to do all these things? that I want to do. Like that's usually what's top of mind. Like how do I ensure that my daughter's college is paid for and I can still pay for the weddings and you know, I can still retire and do all these things. That's usually the I would say the big one. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: and then there's always the t the I feel like the tax questions come up like, is there a better way to do this? Or I know I'm making X amount of dollars. Like is there anything I can do to instead of pay that in taxes Keep that in my investments and compound more further, right? So I think those are really the big ones. I don't know, Dave, if you have any other ideas. David D'Albero: is well you know you know what's what's interesting too is a lot of people what's becoming the new trend I would say with a lot of our clients a lot we've had so we've had more clients retire and go back to work by choice by the way by Gregory Wilnau: Mm. David D'Albero: choice because they're bored out of their minds right we've had more it's common it's becoming really common Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, seems to be a common thing in retirement. Yeah. Yeah. David D'Albero: so it's interesting a lot of the conversations are swaying towards this idea of semi retirement And by the way, can I walk out of my role now? Like, can I walk out of my big role now? Because it is stressful. And if you think I've and like, hey, if you can test and say, did I make enough money to get out of this role? Right. But maybe I can get out two or three years earlier and I'd be willing to work part-time or in a contract capacity just to keep myself busy and keep the social aspect. And Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: I'll work even a little longer doing that because I actually like that. But I what I don't want is the stress. So how do I ditch the grind, but still keep the social Gregory Wilnau: Wow, that's awesome. David D'Albero: and the purpose? That is becoming so prevalent in the conversations. Gregory Wilnau: Interesting. David D'Albero: I it's shocking. In fact, we're I'm gonna we're gonna probably do a video on it soon, very soon, actually, in our next shoot day that we're gonna do. Because again, it is such a common conversation. And it just comes down to quality of life that people so people and it's it like COVID gave people got to stay home, they got to do more things, and now they're required to go back to the office. So everyone's mindset's like, wait a second, can I do way less of this, what if not maybe get rid of it altogether and just do some consulting. Like if I have the money to do that, I wanna know I can do that and walk out a little earlier and just take back my time. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: You know? Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. So I think it's not just you guys noticing this pattern or trend. I I've noticed it too. more per por purpose driven work and finding that balance. you know, at this point I would move on and go to the next question. But I actually if you're cool with it, I'd like to sit with this for another minute or two. Is this something that you help would help lead or guide your clients on, helping them make that transition? David D'Albero: One hundred percent and give them the confidence Carmine Coppola: For stuff. David D'Albero: to do it. Like so a big part I I again, which is kind of is something that I think that we do a bit different from a even from a process standpoint is again is it everybody talks about the goals and they all talk and I think a lot of people will build out the kinds of plans where they're assuming best case scenario. We are very much looking at this and saying, Hey, what's the worst that can happen here? Let's say you get laid off. Let's say you decide you want to walk out. Sorry about that, guys. Let's say you want to Gregory Wilnau: Worse. David D'Albero: walk out. Let's say you want it right. you just want to kind of again take your life back a little bit. Yeah, we're able to run all of that and show them with hard numbers the risks associated, ultimately what it looks like once the paycheck stops, how we can replace that paycheck, and then furthermore, how to make it hyper efficient in terms of taxes and investments so that they're not getting crushed. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. David D'Albero: That so 100%. I mean, with with with very I mean with with a very high degree of certainty I we can tell them very quickly even what the possibilities are for them. Carmine Coppola: And on top of that too, like to dive into the you know, the the people we work with, like corporate professionals, we look at their benefits through a really deep lens, like where we'll Hey, if you do leave, here's what happens to all these benefits, here's what you're giving up maybe on the stock com side by leaving early, but if it's worth it and you can do what you want, then do it. But if not, i you know, we give them that advice as well, like, hey, here's what happens if you leave before this age or whatever it may be, which I feel like is lost when you're not working with those people every single day because like I said Gregory Wilnau: Definitely. Carmine Coppola: earlier, those benefits are complicated and long. The the Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Carmine Coppola: documents are crazy. So we really hone in on that 'cause it's super impactful and it's very underrated. People don't really take into account into their plans a lot. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. I think that it sounds like, you know, and of course, all of these are you know, nothing ever is certain, right? But it sounds like one of the things that you really help your clients with is they have these massively complex situations and they're also weighing different decisions. So if you can just extract all of that, take all of that that's abstract and just present the decision in a to them in a way that is easy for them to wrap their head around. And you can help them make sense of it. I think that sounds like something that's somet that your clients really value in in what you do. David D'Albero: Yeah. Through and through, I think again, it's about we're we're doing the legwork, we're doing the analytical legwork for the client and bringing them here's like here's pros and cons. They're part of the planning discussion. That's the reality of like it's a very a team approach in that sense because our clients are all of our clients are really smart people. So Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: every set like they're no one, you know, they they're very intelligent. I mean, we have we have some really, really incredible, incredible clients. And not only do we love them like and get along with them, but again, we were we have a great working relationship with them. in terms of decision making. And again, that comes from our approach. It comes from our process. And it comes from again, like I think we're able to, I think we're able to provide the information they need to feel good about making decisions. And what Korm said before, I think a lot of times when you when you're not working with someone who specializes in you or your specific type of situation, sometimes stones are left unturned. And I think people go, if I would have known that, I would have done this this way. That doesn't happen with our clients because we only do this. Like this is our Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: lane. This is what we do. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. I love it. I wanna I want us to unpack a little bit more how you work with your clients and what your process looks like in a bit in a minute. But first let's take a a step back. Where do your where do you typically find your clients? or where do they find you rather, where do they where do they come from? Carmine Coppola: I would say, you know, word of mouth from other existing clients is is obviously that's that's a big one. find us on LinkedIn, they find us through our YouTube channel as well. I think that's where we've been seeing some inflows. But most Gregory Wilnau: Nice. Carmine Coppola: of the time it's, you know, because we're working with people at these companies, you know, larger companies, it's you know, we work with that person, they say, Hey, I met Dave the other day, he really helped me with this, you should talk to him. I know you've been having some questions around your financial situation and that compounds and compounds and compounds. but yeah, I think that's where they find us and they see our that we have the expertise there and they they're like, all right, this makes sense. The trust is is kinda there already. Gregory Wilnau: Cool. I like to understand that 'cause it helps give me more perspective and other people more perspective because it's all about like what's it look like when somebody reaches out to you? What's their situation? So obviously every situation is unique, but okay, so you guys are you know, you guys are you're you're the founders, you're the owners of the practice. And what I like to do is I like to understand more about you, you know, your vision because this helps people see how you think about the future. So when it comes to your practice, where do you see in the next two to three years? What do you what are you what's your vision? What are you working on? Any goals in speci any goals that you're working on? David D'Albero: There's some big ones. And there I think one of the things, and this goes back to let's go full circle back to the start of this conversation, is where we came from, right? And what we saw out there. And I think a big part of what we're doing is because we want to move the needle on the quality of advice that is given in our industry. That's the reason why we started YouTube and we started pushing on LinkedIn and starting. There's there is unfortunately we feel like there's You know, there's product sales disguised as advice and it's prevalent in the industry. And I think there's a reason why there's a lack of trust in our industry for financial professionals. And is because people, I think people maybe they don't directly know it, but they can kind of sense it. People are smart, right? Like they can sense when something is being sold to them. And I think a big thing for us in this education platform that we're trying to build with YouTube and and again, LinkedIn, is really trying to like kind of level up the standard of advice in our business. And I know that sounds cr I mean, we're talking that's a that's a that's a big undertaking to be able to want to do that. But I gotta tell you, we're part of mastermind groups with other advisors and they're looking at it the same way. And they're saying, hey, they all left the worlds that we were in, right? We were, you know, and I say worlds because again, two different companies ended up the same way and they were both product manufacturers, right? ended up going towards your compensation and everything is dictated by what you sell that as their product, right? Cell core product, you get rewarded. That's what it is, right? but again, these folks were in the same situation. And we've we've all had discussions in these mastermind groups, and it's we've all kind of come up with that same goal is like, hey, we need to level this industry up. Like, let's let's let's bring some pride back to this profession and some professionalism back to the profession. and so if I had to tell you, data's probably our biggest goal as far as again, it listen. Revenue's never been the main motivator in how we built this. And it's always been like, hey, do a really good job, be highly ethical, be service oriented, like really care about people, and the byproduct will be revenue. Like revenue shouldn't be the one number one thing driving driving the goal. It it just seems silly to me and kind of again, I I I think, you know, I it's listen, you look at medical, you look at finance, people, two important, very important things for people. And again, biggest complaints of people is that it's motivated everything's motivated by money. Right? Like they feel like their doctors do it. They feel like, right, well, let's let's make that a little different. Like let's be let's be the let's be like, let's be good examples of what this is supposed to look like. So that ultimately for me, for I and again, I I don't want to I don't want to speak for karm, but that's the conversations we've had in terms of the next couple of years is building that YouTube channel to, you know, to something where we can make a difference. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. I think this goes in line with one of the core motivations of you guys starting your own firm in the first place, which is, you know, trust, right? that conviction to do that, make the right not sell just not sell stuff just to sell it, but to help make recommendations in the client's best interest to serve them first. So I love that. Yeah. Yeah. David D'Albero: Work for the client. Like truly work for the client. Gregory Wilnau: Carmine, anything you want to add to that? Anything specifically related to two to three year goals, vision that you You guys are working on together. Any thoughts? Carmine Coppola: Yeah, definitely everything Dave said in addition more on I guess the business side of things is is be a place where David D'Albero: Yes. Carmine Coppola: people who want to get into this industry on the advisor side, have a firm that does the training the right way, teaches people actually how to give advice and the things to pay attention to, and train them the right way where the you're not jumping in here and you're selling to people like the environments we grew up in. It's the proper way, it's the way every other industry works, the law firms, accounting firms, they all work training first and then you start working with clients. and build that system so we can live beyond me and Dave, you know, where it just keeps compounding, compounding. But everyone has the right values, the right principles, and it's all ingrained in the culture that we have here. So the next two to three years is really laying the groundwork for all of that. And then beyond that, we're hoping to see, you know, like I said bigger than me and Dave. So that's really what I would add on top of it. Gregory Wilnau: Awesome. I love that. I love that you're thinking beyond yourselves. But your story is kind of the the genesis of all that. All right. So let's let's talk a little bit more about your process and what it actually looks like to to work with you. So let's say someone becomes a a client today. what does onboarding look like? What's what happens the first couple of weeks? Carmine Coppola: easy. So they mentioned earlier, we do David D'Albero: Yep. Carmine Coppola: all we try to do all of the legwork. the client weep there's a document request where we need their information and we leave no stone unturned. We want to know everything so we can give the best possible advice on everything. So that's probably the most heavy lifting from the client perspective is gathering all that information and we're here to help with that as well. Like we we a team built out, like if we need to make phone calls to institutions, like one of our guys is jumping on. We try to white glove everything to make it as as seamless as possible. Because we don't want that to be in the way of giving good advice, right? So after that, it's a lot of analysis on our end, like we look through everything, investment statements, tax returns, what the clients actually want to do with what with their money and their life. And that's where we start the kind of the initial modeling of a projection. And then we dive deep down into each one of the disciplines, like the investments, the the retirement picture if they want if they that's one of their goals. And if they retiring, like where are you getting income from? And we could we dive deeper into each one depending on the client situation. And then across everything David D'Albero: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: is a tax overlay. And what I mean by that is we're David D'Albero: Okay. Carmine Coppola: always looking through the scope of taxes because it affects every single portion of someone's life. And it could Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: be the difference of a dollar stretching like one year or 10 years if you're smart about how you do the tax planning. So so it's a few meetings, but most of the heavy liftings on us, we nerd out on. We love it. We love going through all the stuff. You know Yeah, we have we have internal meetings where Gregory Wilnau: That's always good. David D'Albero: Yeah. That's fine. Carmine Coppola: that's another t thing too on our end, which the clients don't see a lot, it's a team approach. So it's it's me, Dave, there's a couple other people on the team and we like to spitball, collaborate on it because you know, yes, me and Dave agree on everything planning, like we have the same mindset. Sometimes I'll see something or he'll see something or look at it from a different w way. And it's it's great to have that extra input and not be kind of just stuck in your own thoughts. David D'Albero: Additionally, you know, something really interesting, like a really big benefit of the way we do things now. it's almost like a it's almost like a war room. That's how I describe it. Like so imagine a bunch of people around a table looking at stuff and saying, like I poking holes and stuff. And that's generally that's like what we do. What we find is there's an added benefit to that, and it's that we all know the client case. So like if I get hit by a bus, and it'll be big, I get asked this all the time, like what happens if you get hit by a bus? Always getting hit by buses, Greg. I don't know why. Carmine Coppola: Not make. Too agile. Gregory Wilnau: Hopefully not. David D'Albero: hopefully not. but if you get hit by a bus, like does everybody know my situation? It's like, yeah, they've been in the room the whole time. Like they know everything, right? that's in I think that's that's critically important for for two reasons. One, again, the client has that backup, they know that. That's great, right? But additionally, it's how we train people to have the same mindset as us around the client. service and what we ultimately produce for clients, right? So like everything from the deliverables to the conversations. They're in on it. So again, that's to us, that's what's always been missing to to go to Carm's point. That's been missing from the financial advisory world. I was, Carm was, we were shut out of those conversations in the beginning. I mean, they weren't I again I I work with some great people. I I and again, I'll never talk about it about a single person I've ever worked with, because I learned something from every single person. But ultimately, Gregory Wilnau: Absolutely. David D'Albero: like you can't duplicate yourself if you don't bring people in on the conversation. Gregory Wilnau: Mm mm. David D'Albero: And that what happens if again, if you're not if you don't have a vision of how to duplicate yourself, eventually you're gonna get tapped out from a bandwidth perspective perspective, and then your service will suffer. And Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. David D'Albero: our case bake, the way we do that. It creates people who are, again, who understand the client process very, very well. They understand the planning process very well. And they're pe and they they could, we could, for the sake of discussion, if I got hit by a bus, they'd be able to step in and do a fantastic job for the client. Gregory Wilnau: I love that. You can create that that redundancy. David D'Albero: Mm-hmm. Gregory Wilnau: what does okay, so after the client's onboarded, what does what does the the working relationship look like? What's the meeting cadence? How what does it look like to work with you during the course of a calendar? Carmine Coppola: Great question. So let's start with January. So January typically, so say you're a client, you're already onboarded. January every year you're getting a what we call a tax letter. So we send out a letter to our clients or their accountants saying, Hey, here's all the expected documents that your your our client is supposed to get. So it helps the accountant. The accountants love us because they're like, thank God, like we never get there. David D'Albero: E even strategy too. Like if we if there's something we did in terms of Roth conversions or something like that, like they're getting a heads up on all that. What was done, why it was done. And we probably had a conversation with them already. So it's more of a just a reminder that it happened. You know what I mean? But yeah. Carmine Coppola: Exactly. So that so that's the first thing that happens. usually in March is our beginning of year kind of strategy meeting. So we're reviewing what we went over the previous year, setting some goals for the current year, you know, has anything changed, what's going on, yada yada yada. but we're kind of setting the tone for the year with that and just touching base and making sure that we're aware of everything going on. revisit the plan, revisit the goals. after that Tax season ends in April, so we're requesting tax returns from all of our clients. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: We do a tax report reviewing the previous year and send it off to them like, hey, here's what went on. If there's something that is a red flag, we let them know. If not, we just say, hey, for your information, here's here's what it is. And if we implemented a strategy in the previous year, we say, hey, that strategy worked. Here's how much you saved, or here was the impact. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Carmine Coppola: Then as we lead up into the summer, I forgot one thing. We actually send out three times a year. It's called the strata perspective. It's like a ten minute video that goes through, you know, we call it also cocktail finance. It's just like headline, news going Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Carmine Coppola: on, how the markets are doing. But we basically say if you watch that video, you should be the smartest person at your next cocktail party type of thing. Gregory Wilnau: Nice. David D'Albero: Yeah. Be able to hold your conversation with your buddies, like, you know what I mean? Like you you you're gonna you're gonna sound like you know what you're talking about and that you're well read on the subject matter. But not Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. David D'Albero: create like we don't get into the detail nitty gritty stuff on it because nobody wants that. But I think people understanding like the news headlines. Yeah, like what's the Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. They want to know your take on it, right? Yeah, yeah. Carmine Coppola: Yeah. David D'Albero: news headlines? Like what's happening with interest rates? Why does what does that impact? Like they can go have a pretty nice conversation on it with people. And again, super high level, but at least they sound you know, and that's that's the joke, cocktail finance, right? Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: Love it. How often do you typically meet with your clients? Is it once per quarter, once per year? Available ad hoc. What's that, what's that structure look like? David D'Albero: So available ad hoc, certainly. We meet with people all the time because things change. But I think the majority of our clients have gotten into this cadence that they love, where it's that March meeting. and they're getting a video also of they get a video of that of that shot of perspective, right? We were doing it on meetings and then we were like, why don't we try to just record this and send it out? We did that and people are like, so much better, because I can stop and start it. I can like I can refer back to it, right? But June to July, we recorded another video for them. the strata perspective and then we'll usually go through their quarterly performance report and any outstanding items on video and we'll send it to them. Some clients book the meeting right after that because they have things they want to discuss. Other people are like, thanks so much for the update. I'm too busy. Okay. Whatever you want. Yeah. Whatever Carmine Coppola: Yeah, it's a summer, vacations, whatever maybe. Gregory Wilnau: Sure. Sure. David D'Albero: you want. And then and then September rolls around. Again, we're preparing for clients for the October meeting. The reason why October is important to us and why we do the October meeting, the way we at the time we do it is because it's open enrollment. So we're helping clients choose what they need to choose for their benefits and open enrollment. We're also having conversations around potentially again their deferred comp. That usually is a November decision. But again, we're kind of getting ahead of that. and then additionally, for especially for retired clients, we're kind of looking back at the year from a tax perspective and saying, okay, did everything go the way we planned it would? Is there any adjustments that we need to make for the remainder of the year? That usually is enough time. And then again, additionally, with those retired clients, we're looking to now the forward year for the year forward and saying, what kind of income do we need? Where are we, what accounts are we taking from and how much? And what are the tax withholdings? And we're really getting into the nitty-gritty. Like October is a big meeting. So March and October, the two biggies. The middle of the year, if you want to cash up, great, let's do it. You have that option to book a meeting. 90% of people don't. They just they're like, this is good. Gregory Wilnau: But it's there if they it. David D'Albero: It's there if they need it, right? And some people book it because they just want to say what's up. And that's cool too, right? We love that. but but but for the most part, again, three strata perspective videos you're getting. and you're getting again, you're getting two definite meetings, very planning and tax heavy, with the additional third one if you want in the center of the year. That's been really great. People like that, and of course, we're available all year. Carmine Coppola: Yeah, if something pops up, hey, I'm getting a new job or I'm buying this house, which people are buying houses left to right apparently, 'cause we're getting emails David D'Albero: Everyone's buying how it's. Carmine Coppola: left and right on it, we're we're there for that as well. Like anytime. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. So you have that structure in place during key points of the year that are that are very relevant to your clients. And also you're available if anything changes. So I I I love it. Alright, so for anybody who is interested in wanting to get in touch with you or possibly working with you, what should they do next? Where should they go? Carmine Coppola: go to our website which is www.straticapital dot co that's dot co not dot com and go to the contact page and then you can either fill out the form or there's there's links there you can you can book a meeting directly. I would say additionally check out our YouTube YouTube channel which is strata capital is youtube dot com slash at Strata Capital so a lot of good information there as well. Gregory Wilnau: Awesome. David Carmine, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Appreciate you guys. David D'Albero: Thanks for having us. Carmine Coppola: Thanks, Greg.