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HighTower's Weissbluth on Need For Solid Financial Plan (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Global business news twenty four hours a day. If Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Handquarters.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Charlie. Pelett's stocks are slipping from near record levels
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  Speaker 1: Texas enemy the a crude I'm Charlie Tellerton. That's a
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg business flash. You're listening to taking Stock with Bim
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  Speaker 1: Box and Jatholeen Hayes on Bloomberg Radio. What would you
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  Speaker 1: do if you fired yourself? Would you rehire yourself? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's find out a little bit more from Elliott Wis Blooth.
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  Speaker 1: He is the founder and the chief executive High Tower Advisors,
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  Speaker 1: helping to manage over thirty billion dollars in assets for clients.
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  Speaker 1: He's based in Chicago, but he joins us here at
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg World Headquarters in New York. Elliott, thanks for being here.
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  Speaker 1: Good to see you. I mentioned this idea of hiring
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  Speaker 1: and firing yourself because I know that is something that
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  Speaker 1: you do every year. Explain what it is this means.
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  Speaker 1: So I have to give full credit to the inspiration.
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  Speaker 1: Andy Grove at Intel is famous for this technique that
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  Speaker 1: he did with his management team, and I've adopted it
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  Speaker 1: and made it pretty personal and adopted it on the team.
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  Speaker 1: And the general idea is that you can't get to
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  Speaker 1: a state of mind where you can forgive yourself for
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  Speaker 1: all the things you did wrong the year before unless
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  Speaker 1: you actually fire yourself. Have a candid conversation about all
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  Speaker 1: the things that you you didn't do exactly the way
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  Speaker 1: you would hope that they would turn out, or the
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  Speaker 1: judgments you made that in hindsight, maybe you would have
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  Speaker 1: made them a little bit differently. And it's a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a tongue in cheek exercise, right, because there's something
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  Speaker 1: funny about firing, and you fire yourself. But then, of course,
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  Speaker 1: after you've smarted the wounds of being fired, you have
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  Speaker 1: the good sense to hire yourself back. And it's the
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  Speaker 1: hiring yourself back, I think where there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: magic that can happen inside of a way of a
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  Speaker 1: person thinks about decision making, because if you're the new guy,
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  Speaker 1: then you don't have any obligation to all those crazy
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  Speaker 1: decisions the old guy did, right because after all the guy.
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  Speaker 1: So you go through that process and what it allows
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  Speaker 1: you to do is say, well, if I was the
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  Speaker 1: new guy showing up here for the first time, what
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  Speaker 1: are some of the things I would change today? And
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  Speaker 1: that frees your mind to say, Okay, here are a
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  Speaker 1: couple of decisions that I'm gonna make today, or judgments
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make today, and they may not be massive profound,
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  Speaker 1: monumental shifts, but they might be very important changes that
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  Speaker 1: you're going to make to begin a process, or to
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  Speaker 1: begin a conversation, or to accelerate or decelerate part of
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  Speaker 1: the world around you. And that freedom is is pretty
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  Speaker 1: powerful and pretty liberating. So I guess every year you've
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  Speaker 1: rehired yourself so far, I think you'll probably rehiring yourself,
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  Speaker 1: maybe tough for some years another. So sure with us
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  Speaker 1: last year, what was the number one thing that you
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  Speaker 1: didn't do correctly? You said, oh boy, you believe blew it, Elliott,
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  Speaker 1: And then the new Elliott got to say, okay, here,
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  Speaker 1: so I'm doing So we a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 1: we had a strategic plan to optimized part of our business.
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  Speaker 1: We knew we had built a platform that a lot
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  Speaker 1: of advisors used, and we had a strategic vision to
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  Speaker 1: take it and apply it to a different part of
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  Speaker 1: the marketplace. And we knew intellectually that it would make
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  Speaker 1: sense because it was a good idea. But what we
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  Speaker 1: hadn't done, and what I hadn't done, has taken the
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  Speaker 1: time to properly fully evangelize all of the people that
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  Speaker 1: had to make it happen. And it's not just the
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  Speaker 1: CEO and a couple of leaders in the business. You
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  Speaker 1: need to have a consensus if you're going to really
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  Speaker 1: take on a strategic shift, and so I had moved
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  Speaker 1: too quickly ahead of the people that had to make
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  Speaker 1: it happen. And I recognized that. But in the process
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  Speaker 1: of firing myself and rehiring myself, I realized how important
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  Speaker 1: it was to go back and re evangelize some of
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  Speaker 1: those people and really get them on board in a
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  Speaker 1: way that when we renewed our energies in the first
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  Speaker 1: part of the year, they would be much more engaged
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  Speaker 1: and much more involved in making the that that sort
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  Speaker 1: of activity a success. As a result of that, this year,
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  Speaker 1: we're on track to have the greatest growth year we've
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  Speaker 1: had since we launched the business, and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: that was because many of the people that didn't really
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  Speaker 1: feel included in the conversation were properly brought into the conversation.
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  Speaker 1: They hit the ground running with a different level of energy,
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  Speaker 1: and it was largely because I had failed to properly
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  Speaker 1: evangelize them and bring them to where they needed to
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  Speaker 1: be to make the initiative as success. I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to ask about the biggest concern that registered investment advisors have,
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  Speaker 1: which is your force of employees so to secure. But
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  Speaker 1: what are some of the things that they're coming to
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  Speaker 1: you with that they're getting from their customers. What kinds
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  Speaker 1: of questions are they coming to you with. Well, I'll
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  Speaker 1: tell you. I was in Minneapolis Saint Paul last night
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  Speaker 1: and I welcomed the new team UM into Higower and
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  Speaker 1: a fantastic financial advisor, a veteran of the industry, and
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  Speaker 1: a great group of his clients joined to welcome him
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  Speaker 1: into his new office, and we went to welcome him
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  Speaker 1: to High Tower. And what I heard at that room,
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  Speaker 1: and I heard as I was was reading the clients
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  Speaker 1: and over the cocktail hour, is what I'm hearing a
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  Speaker 1: lot of, which is that there's a significant amount of
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  Speaker 1: um uneasiness about the markets and there's a difficulty today
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  Speaker 1: with with opportunities that will create yield for clients. And
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  Speaker 1: so there's a strong sentiment in the community to not
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  Speaker 1: reach for yield, to not to not do things differently
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  Speaker 1: because the markets today are are difficult for a lot
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  Speaker 1: of advisors to find opportunities. So it's a combination of
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  Speaker 1: market environment coupled with a sense of an easiness. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that uneasiness is fueled not just by maybe
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  Speaker 1: the political landscape in this country, what's happening, what's happening
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  Speaker 1: around the world, things like Zeka. There's a whole variety
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  Speaker 1: of things that are playing into it. But the levels
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  Speaker 1: of uneasiness we're we're hearing, you know, literally from around
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  Speaker 1: the country are are pretty high well. And we do
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  Speaker 1: talk to advisors. We understand it's it's very difficult to
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  Speaker 1: keep the risk low for your for your client and
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  Speaker 1: also get them the kind of returns that they would
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  Speaker 1: like to have. Uh more broadly than especially at a
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  Speaker 1: time like this, they've got negative rates and you know,
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  Speaker 1: bond yields negative around the world are so very low,
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  Speaker 1: or fixed income isn't helping that much. Dividend pain stocks
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  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit played out, that's a possibility. But
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  Speaker 1: what can and should a person expect from their advisors
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  Speaker 1: It first and foremost, making sure I don't lose money.
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  Speaker 1: What is the number one thing I should be expecting
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  Speaker 1: them to do? So, I think the most important thing
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  Speaker 1: for an individual to think about is do they feel
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  Speaker 1: that their financial advisor has built a comprehensive plan for
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  Speaker 1: them and their family, and it may not just be
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  Speaker 1: limited to the technical financial plan which maps out various
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  Speaker 1: needs that a family may have. It's is the financial
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  Speaker 1: advisor looking at today's market in context of the person's
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  Speaker 1: total wellness, how they think about where the family is going,
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  Speaker 1: where the needs are going to be. Because we focus
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  Speaker 1: much more on the total picture, if you will, then
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  Speaker 1: what might be happening is different for a wealthy customer
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  Speaker 1: that you you probably have a lot of those versus
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  Speaker 1: somebody who's just hoping will have enough money to live
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  Speaker 1: in retirement. Obviously there are differences in those needs. But
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  Speaker 1: I think that if you're thinking about a person's well
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  Speaker 1: being and how they think about their relationship to money,
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  Speaker 1: everything is contextual in terms of the quality of their life,
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  Speaker 1: the quality of their health, educational needs, retirement needs, and
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  Speaker 1: everybody has those needs. They may just have different quantities
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  Speaker 1: and different complexities with that with those stages of life.
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  Speaker 1: But a person who's thinking about retiring at one income
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  Speaker 1: level is going to have similar life stage issues even
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  Speaker 1: if they have many more dollars, so the complexity may change.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously a person with a lot of money has
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  Speaker 1: a different set of problems than a person who has
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  Speaker 1: has more modest income, but emotionally and from the way
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  Speaker 1: they are going through their lives, they're having similar experiences Elliott.
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  Speaker 1: According to the Council for Economic Education, they do a
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  Speaker 1: survey of the States. The study found that seventy parents
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  Speaker 1: experience at least some reluctance to talk to their children
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  Speaker 1: about financial matters. So how do you become a financial
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  Speaker 1: grown up? It's a great question in some ways that
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  Speaker 1: that makes the case obviously for a thoughtful financial advisor,
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  Speaker 1: because if the mom and dad are having some difficult
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  Speaker 1: times having these conversations, this is where a good professional
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  Speaker 1: can engage. You know, one of the things that we
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  Speaker 1: have to start talking about is the relationship between money
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  Speaker 1: and and total wellness. And if you look at the data,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the stress that comes from divorce, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the stress that leads to people calling into hotlines, UM,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the reasons that people feel uneasy about
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  Speaker 1: life can in many ways be tied to their money. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: people don't tend to think of their financial advisor the
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  Speaker 1: same way they do as a doctor or a lawyer.
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  Speaker 1: They think of the financial advisor more as a tactician
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  Speaker 1: or a strategist to deliver a certain routine a certain return.
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  Speaker 1: I think if if the good financial advisors that are
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  Speaker 1: out there have figured out that the way they can
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  Speaker 1: add a lot of value is actually by broadening the
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  Speaker 1: way they interact with the families and the people, and
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity to do that, I think it's fantastic when
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  Speaker 1: you have parents that need a third party to talk
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  Speaker 1: to their children about about how to think about money.
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  Speaker 1: Fifteen seconds left. How do I know when to fire
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  Speaker 1: my advisor and move on? It's a very difficult question
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  Speaker 1: to answer in but I would say that the first
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  Speaker 1: the first indication that you have the wrong person is
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  Speaker 1: when you get the sense that they're they're trying to
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  Speaker 1: constantly sell you something and they have a new thing
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  Speaker 1: to sell you rather than trying to build you a
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  Speaker 1: long range financial plan for your future. Well, short answer,
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  Speaker 1: but long on wisdom. Thank you so much. Elliott Wisbloo
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  Speaker 1: founder and CEO of CEO of High Tower. He is
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  Speaker 1: talking to us about financial advisors, talking about what you
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  Speaker 1: should look for in them and more, and we'll hope
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  Speaker 1: you'll come back soon, Elliott. I'm Caffeine Hay's along with
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  Speaker 1: pim Fox, and this is Bloomberg