Latest / The Perfect RIA / Creating Value Adds from the Tax Return
Transcript
- 0:22Unknown: Y'all planning for this?
- 0:36Welcome back TPR Nation. This is Jamie Shilanski in an episode of
- 0:39Worlds to Conquer and I'm going to share with you the inside my
- 0:42office Shilanski and Associates is going to be gearing up to
- 0:45tackle as we move into summer. So for those of you that know
- 0:50Shilanski and Associates is our RIA up in Anchorage, Alaska, it
- 0:53was started by my mom and dad, Floyd and Rosa Shilanski. About
- 0:56four years ago, my brother, my baby brother, Micah Shilanski
- 0:59and I had been at the helm for the last dozen years or so. And
- 1:03we have just instrumentally gotten better and better and
- 1:05better, but make no mistake about it. That is because we are
- 1:08standing on the shoulders of giants. We are refining
- 1:11processes, we are delivering massive value, and we are
- 1:14impacting 1000s upon 1000s of heartbeats. That's how we refer
- 1:18to our clients. We don't necessarily refer to them as
- 1:20clients internally, we always call the heartbeats. Why does it
- 1:23matter? The heartbeat is impacting the heartbeat. How
- 1:26many heartbeats can we tell, why? Because I never ever, ever
- 1:29want to reduce our financial advisory practice to account
- 1:32numbers and account sizes and value of AUM. This is about
- 1:36making massive multi generational impact on
- 1:40individuals because we have the greatest profession in the
- 1:45world. We get to deliver so much value and help people be an
- 1:49incredible sounding board during every single one of their
- 1:52massive milestones throughout their lifetime. And if we do our
- 1:56job right, that is the marriage that is the birth of children.
- 1:59That is the career changes that is a loss of parents putting
- 2:02parents in retirement centers and welcoming grandchildren. We
- 2:06get to experience so many generations of impact by
- 2:10providing people with incredible financial advice from a trusted
- 2:14source that they get to use as a sounding board. We don't get to
- 2:18slack off or we get outside of Surge. So what is surge? Surge
- 2:21is a specific time block period in which we do nothing as
- 2:25financial advisors but we back to back with clients to deliver
- 2:28massive value. It is strategic, it is focused and during the
- 2:32springtime, it is our biggest surge out of the year. Now why
- 2:35is it our biggest surge is it because we have more time to
- 2:38meet with clients? Nope. We keep it kept at those six weeks that
- 2:41we talked about. That's all of March and half of April. Why do
- 2:44I get a half of April? Because I tie it to the tax deadline. Are
- 2:49we meeting with more clients during spring surge? No, we're
- 2:52not. We're meeting with the same amount of clients during that
- 2:55spring surge. But it is our biggest surge because of the
- 2:59majority of the information that we're gathering from our clients
- 3:03during that time blocked period. In the month of March. Clients
- 3:08are geared up to hunt and pack their financial information.
- 3:12This is a an extraordinary time. We start reminding clients in
- 3:16January of all the information that they're going to be
- 3:19receiving in the next couple of months. And then asking them to
- 3:22provide our office with copies whether or not they think it
- 3:25applies to something that's going on with them. If they see
- 3:28it. If it involves money, why don't they go ahead and provide
- 3:30us a copy of it. This is the time of year where clients have
- 3:33to remember their login your username and passcode to get
- 3:371099 information to get things set up. And so when they're
- 3:41remembering that we're saying hey, by the way, why don't you
- 3:44go ahead and throw that into box.com. That's our secured
- 3:47client portal where we can share information. But one of the hard
- 3:50rules in our office is we don't send anything out unsecured we
- 3:54really don't even try to send out blank documents to clients
- 3:57design. Why? Because if I email you a billing document, when you
- 4:01send that document out, what course of action you're going to
- 4:03take? You're gonna email right back to me, unsecure! So we
- 4:07really try to push everything we possibly can into box.com
- 4:11because of their encryption protocols. And then when a
- 4:14client gets back to us through box.com so we really try to in
- 4:18fact during one of our SEC examinations, they asked what
- 4:21was the biggest threat to client security of their information?
- 4:24And my brother answered: Clients. Clients are the biggest
- 4:27thread to Client Security and Information. I cannot tell you
- 4:30how many clients are like hey, can I just check text over my
- 4:32passport? Nope, sorry. Don't text with the client. What can I
- 4:34just email to you then? No, no, you can't. So we really have to
- 4:38advocate to keep our client information safe by taking these
- 4:41protocols and not deviating from them unless unless we absolutly
- 4:45have to and there are rare occasions because there are
- 4:47probably three clients in our entire practice that just
- 4:50because of their age and their technology differences. They
- 4:53don't understand how to use the portal. But most of the time I
- 4:57mean for all the rest of the 500 clients or 497 clients. They get
- 5:01it they know how to use it. Everything is online. Everything
- 5:03pushed us online during the pandemic. And so this is a
- 5:07wonderful time for people to be logging in grabbing their tax
- 5:09information and providing you a secured copy of that. So I love
- 5:13to see everything that they would give to their CPA. Oh,
- 5:17here's a fun thing that I'm going to share with you if you
- 5:18have an enterprise office. I just learned that from talking
- 5:22and networking with other financial advisors that in their
- 5:25enterprise office, the second year associates for financial
- 5:29planners so the first year they get their CFP the second year
- 5:31they have to go become enrolled agents and the way that that
- 5:34enterprise office operates is that all the all the financial
- 5:38advisors that go into their third year so the first year
- 5:40CFP, second year getting enrolled agent, third year they
- 5:43started doing the tax returns of all the clients. I thought that
- 5:47was brilliant in respect for this particular practice. I
- 5:50don't know if it's something I would adopt for us, but I
- 5:52thought it was brilliant because what better way to get
- 5:55completely acclimated into a client's finances than rolling
- 5:59up your sleeves, taking your rings off washing your hands and
- 6:02getting all inside of that dough. I mean, you're just
- 6:06leaving and massaging and letting it rest and coming back
- 6:09to it. I mean, you're really working that information over in
- 6:12order to get everything out of it. So I thought that was a
- 6:14great idea. I'm actually going to have our new hire, our
- 6:17paraplanner he's going to start his Enrolled Agent for a
- 6:20different purpose. I don't think that we're going to bring taxes
- 6:22back in house. My brother when he first start off the career
- 6:25started off a side hustle of Shilanski tax services because
- 6:27it was just natural. In fact out there right now I'm probably
- 6:30speaking to many CFPs that also are CPAs or maybe you guys do
- 6:34taxes inside your financial planning firm. If that's the
- 6:37case hit us up on social media or at theperfectria.com. Let us
- 6:41know if you're managing both of those. If you do taxes inside
- 6:44your financial advisory firm, or do you outsource that out to the
- 6:48center of influence? What does that look like? We did Shilanski
- 6:51tax planning it became so incredibly laborious that my
- 6:54brother couldn't actually bring on financial planning clients
- 6:56because he had so many tax clients that he was meeting with
- 6:59that we just ended up with a bandwidth problem. So we kind of
- 7:02closed that down went dormant for a few years we worked with
- 7:04centers of influence, but in 2021 we had a lot of CPAs retire
- 7:12in this country. We had a lot of tax professionals say it's been
- 7:16real. It's been fun. It was not always real fun, peace out Cub
- 7:20Scout and took off. They rolled up their practices and told
- 7:24their clients go find somebody else. But the problem was is
- 7:27that as we knocked on doors most people weren't taking average
- 7:31clients. They were looking for the boss the back office support
- 7:35solutions they wanted to do the large corporations in which they
- 7:38picked up the accounting recurring revenue every single
- 7:40month as well. And so we found a real hard time placing people
- 7:45with CPAs that would do the average person's tax return. So
- 7:49we partnered up with retirement tax services and had them start
- 7:53preparing returns for individuals in our practice that
- 7:56we're having those type of challenges. We're premiere
- 7:58members over there. So Stephen Jarvis is their head CPA.
- 8:01They've got a wonderful team. They also have an entire network
- 8:04of other financial advisors. That they get to you get a pin
- 8:07questions, they do quarterly updates, they give us a 37
- 8:10It's good for somebody like me that gets to you know, like, go
- 8:11points check list which is fenomenal way.
- 8:14down a checklist to item number seven, and I'm like, Yeah, we're
- 8:18done. We're done. We're gonna move forward, but it really
- 8:21forces me to look at that tax return. Go for the 37 point
- 8:24checklist and make sure it's good to go for the client. And I
- 8:28love it! Because of that 37 point test, if you haven't
- 8:31purchased it, jump order retirmenttaxservices.com
- 8:34downloaded it. I think they sell it, it's super marginal. I mean,
- 8:37it can't cost more than 50 bucks to sit there and go through
- 8:41every single tax return. Either if you're as a financial
- 8:44advisor, or if you're an operations person, relationship
- 8:47management. And you catch things you wouldn't otherwise, to draw
- 8:51our attention to and they're small.
- 8:53They're small things that actually have big impact. One of
- 8:55them that they ask is has there been an address change? Seems
- 8:59stupid like a stupid question, to update your address with the
- 9:01IRS? Well, if you moved addresses, maybe you move states
- 9:05and maybe you moved to a state that's going to have an income
- 9:08tax problem. And so it was really great exercise for all of
- 9:12us to go through in our office. I don't think I'll bring taxes
- 9:15back in house but I will give some of our paraplanners and our
- 9:18advisors that training Gleim offers it g l e i m my we looked
- 9:23at their syllabus, and this is just really good foundational
- 9:27training for financial advisors. As financial advisors, we've
- 9:30always operated in kind of a murky area between law and
- 9:34taxes. And there is a bigger question about what is legal
- 9:39advice versus what is financial planning advice, and what is tax
- 9:43advice versus tax planning advice. So we'd like to make
- 9:47sure our clients know we're not attorneys. We're not CPAs but
- 9:49we're going to work hand in hand with them. And we're going to
- 9:51bounce ideas off of another reason I really like working
- 9:54with retirement Tax Services is it gives me a sounding board
- 9:57before I go to the client, and I say hey, listen, I got this
- 10:00client. This is what we're thinking. We want to do a whole
- 10:01bunch of qualified charitable distributions out of the IRAs
- 10:04when they hit age 70. What's our process? How do we move forward?
- 10:08And they're like, actually, you know what, under the Cares Act,
- 10:10you could do XY and Z right? And so it's just good things good,
- 10:13real good sounding board to bounce ideas off before you go
- 10:15present to a client and figure out you can or cannot do
- 10:18something. So I like working with them for that reason alone.
- 10:23I don't think we'll bring taxes back in house but we always do
- 10:26tax planning for our clients. So one of the things that we are
- 10:29trying to be instrumental with our financial advisors about is
- 10:31doing a five to 10 year tax plan. What does the horizon look
- 10:36like? Now? This is a conversation I have with many
- 10:39CPAs because you know us as financial advisors, we're all
- 10:43about the forecasting. We're all about the what ifs the
- 10:46predictions. What's possible. Hey, what do we do this and this
- 10:49scenario, that's not where CPAs live and operate, they live and
- 10:53operate with what is law? What is fact today, and it's not even
- 10:58just a current year. What was it last year because I'm doing all
- 11:02of this looking backwards. You want a fun exercise, it's really
- 11:07kind of sad is looking at engagement letter of a CPA firm
- 11:10and look at everything that they tell you to do and go back. Or
- 11:13what they tell you what they charge for right, we're gonna do
- 11:15tax planning, tax advise. We're gonna look at minimizing your
- 11:18tax liability. You know, all of these things, and they go to
- 11:22your clients as they do they do XY and Z. Oh, no, they just
- 11:24prepare me return and tell me what I owe. All right. So we
- 11:28like to take it a step further in our office and working hand
- 11:31in hand with those CPAs to bounce ideas off, strategies.
- 11:33How can we do everything for tip the IRS, they're earning far
- 11:38enough of our hard earned dollars? We don't need to leave
- 11:41a tip on the table for the extra work that they're doing. So when
- 11:45another financial advisors go to that Enrolled Agent, I'm going
- 11:47to give them a good foundation of taxes because they see a lot
- 11:50of tax returns. So when we partner with any CPA firm, we
- 11:55always ask our clients to give us a copy of the tax return. Now
- 11:58I'm always looking for an opportunity where I can make it
- 12:01as stupid, simple and easy for the client as possible. So when
- 12:04they are in our office, if they are working with a CPA firm,
- 12:08that's not retirement tax services, because we have a
- 12:10blanket one for them because they work with a lot of our
- 12:12clients. But I go out and I say Hey, could I have you sign this
- 12:16letter of authorization? I'd really wanna make sure that I
- 12:19provided your CPA with as many of the 1099s that you are coming
- 12:23out of Schwab, that's where we custodian add or I would like to
- 12:27see a copy of your return before it gets filed. I'd be happy to
- 12:29review a draft a second set of eyes never hurts. And they say
- 12:32oh my gosh, that would be fabulous. So now I have the
- 12:34client sign an LOA. Now we have our mission to go to the CPAs
- 12:37office and I can get the information instead of asking
- 12:40the client for it. Why because clients are not always
- 12:42responsible for getting us the information. Now, their
- 12:45responsibility. They're not responsible to follow up with
- 12:47the task of how many people that they've shared this information
- 12:50with. And so if I can make it easy for the client by having
- 12:53them to sign a letter of authorization, I'm going to do
- 12:56that. And then I'm going to task my relationship manager.
- 12:59Remember my relationship manager manages the relationship with
- 13:02the client. They don't provide financial advice, but they do
- 13:05things like schedule or follow up with third parties. So I'm
- 13:08going to ask my Relationship Manager I'm going to say hey,
- 13:10Mr. Mrs. Client, have a signed letter of authorization with XYZ
- 13:15CPA firm, please go get the Working Papers, please go get
- 13:19the draft tax return. And then our relationship managers can
- 13:22send that over they can work behind the scenes they can get
- 13:24all of their region, so I make it less of a nuisance for
- 13:28clients anytime I can save a client one or two steps, I'm
- 13:31going to take that action. I'm going to do it on their behalf
- 13:35because one I'm a control freak. I am a control freak. I want to
- 13:39make sure this stuff is getting done. I want to completely
- 13:43checked off my to do list and then to I want to provide
- 13:45massive value to the client and when they come to us it is to
- 13:48simplify their life not add a level of complexity to it. And
- 13:53so I want to take anything that I can make it simple for the
- 13:56client. I'm going to take on the burden I'm going to take on that
- 13:59action and doing alright, so we've gone on to the CPA firm or
- 14:02maybe the client is responsible for getting us the tax return
- 14:04however that happens. We're getting the return and once
- 14:08we've got the return and it needs to be the executed not
- 14:11just a draft, it's okay to have a draft but I want to upload a
- 14:13new version on top of that with the executed version. I want to
- 14:17make sure I'm going to do things like fall with the client Mr.
- 14:20Mrs. Client, it looks like you had a tax liability of $20,000.
- 14:24I'm just calling today to confirm that that was paid that
- 14:26you submitted that payment to the IRS. Oh, I gave the CPA
- 14:29check. Fabulous. Thank you so much for letting me know. Or
- 14:32actually you know what I meant to jump online and do that. Oh
- 14:34my gosh, I'm gonna have a penalty Hold on. Great. Can we
- 14:37schedule appointment with our service team, and if they have
- 14:40any difficulties, they can certainly walk you through how
- 14:42to take those steps online, whatever gets it done for the
- 14:45client, whatever like level of concierge service that we can
- 14:49help the client with. We're going to do that. Alright, so
- 14:51now we've got a copy of the tax return. Now we've made sure that
- 14:54they have made their payment. Now for any client that owes
- 14:57taxes. Most of the time. Whatever software the CPA firm
- 15:01is using maybe proconnect, it doesn't matter. It's going to
- 15:04kick out an estimated tax worksheet and it's going to give
- 15:08you those little vouchers and say Mr. Mrs. Client, you didn't
- 15:11have enough money withheld throughout the year for your
- 15:13taxes. Therefore next year, we recommend that you make these
- 15:17estimated payments and it's gonna be the single sheet of
- 15:19paper but with just 1/3 of it telling them what they think
- 15:22their estimated tax payments are going to be. Here's a low
- 15:25hanging value add that you can do and it costs very little time
- 15:30inside of your customer relationship management software
- 15:33CRM. Micah and I my baby brother, we created infinity.
- 15:37That's our CRM, that's our brain trust that we use for our
- 15:40financial planning practice. So inside of our CRM, we capture
- 15:44all of this information for the client. So if the client has an
- 15:48estimated tax payments that they need to make next year, we're
- 15:51flagging that for the summer appointment and during that
- 15:53summer appointment, the financial advisor might say Hey,
- 15:56Mr. Mrs. Client, you know what, I think it makes a ton of sense
- 15:59to update your Social Security taxes that are withheld. And
- 16:02then the client says I didn't think that taxes came out on
- 16:05Social Security. Well, great. Let's talk a little bit more
- 16:08about that. And then that gives us a segue to make those sorts
- 16:11of incremental adjustments or if we have a client that just needs
- 16:14to make estimated taxes, we can send them out to expired Mr.
- 16:17Mrs. Client. As a courtesy reminder, I'm sure your CPA firm
- 16:21has already mentioned this to you, but you have an estimated
- 16:24tax payment of $10,000. If I can provide any assistance or you
- 16:28need a free of any additional cash for that, please let our
- 16:31office know, low hanging fruit. Why is that low hanging fruit?
- 16:36Because the CPA firm already did the calculations very spat out
- 16:41what they think the estimated taxes should be. Now whether or
- 16:44not it's accurate because maybe the clients income and inflows
- 16:47as much of ours do but that's up to you and your client
- 16:49relationship. Most of the time, they're going to be relatively
- 16:53close and if they're not relatively close, what a great
- 16:56opportunity to say Mr. Mrs. Client, I know based on last
- 16:58year, the CPA firm that you're working with recommended that
- 17:01you meet estimated tax payments of $10,000 every single quarter
- 17:05what they may not have been privy to is we've 100% converted
- 17:09your IRAs into Roths, therefore we won't have that additional
- 17:12income. I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know I
- 17:15think you can say that $10,000 every quarter this year and not
- 17:19apply it to the potential tax liability.
- 17:22BOOM! Massive massive win for you as a financial advisor, but
- 17:27you've got to be able to go back and look at those returns. Look
- 17:30at the advice the CPA is giving. Have a conversation with the
- 17:34CPA. I never go well your CPA doesn't know what they're
- 17:37talking about because they didn't know XY and Z. Instead I
- 17:39called Mr. Mrs. CPA Miss CPA. I see that you've recommended Bob
- 17:43and Sue to get $10,000 estimated payment. I wanted to let you
- 17:46know we've 100% converted all their IRAs to the Roth this our
- 17:50last tax year. They're not going to have those additional income
- 17:53burdens those additional tax burdens. What do you think about
- 17:56adjusting this down? And then you have a dialogue and
- 17:59conversation? I never say your idiot CPA did XY and Z. I want
- 18:03to make sure I'm having a respectful dialogue. Because the
- 18:06CPA is a historian. They're looking at all of the
- 18:09information that the client has provided them for months or year
- 18:13past past past tense and so they don't get to do a lot of the
- 18:18forward planning. They don't get a lot of forward seeing. And
- 18:21that's where the difference between tax advice and tax
- 18:24planning comes in. Having that dialogue having that respectful
- 18:29conversation, and then taking every opportunity you have as a
- 18:32financial adviser to provide a little bit more value. And it's
- 18:36low hanging fruit stuff like that. I told you the two things
- 18:39that are really really super low and tangible and that you are
- 18:42able to do one letter of authorization make it stupid,
- 18:45simple. Two, do you got the estimated taxes. Does it make
- 18:48sense during your surge summer schedule to talk to clients
- 18:51about either increasing their withholdings or setting up an
- 18:54action sequence inside of your CRM for your relationship
- 18:57manager to remind your clients that they need to make an
- 19:00estimated tax payment? Where can you take those wins? That's what
- 19:05we're looking for. All right, the third super low hanging
- 19:08fruit that to this day, I am beguiled at how impactful it is.
- 19:14It is so impactful of a value add that if a client doesn't get
- 19:17it, I get an email saying hey, we were traveling, and I didn't
- 19:21get this, can you make sure you put it in my box.com account? It
- 19:25was really really helpful for me. And when Micah first
- 19:28presented it to me because he presented he was like, Hey, why
- 19:30don't we do X, Y and Z? And I was like, Oh, that seems silly.
- 19:33That's when they get an onboarding or or tax organizer
- 19:36from their CPA. Why would we do this? I have never heard a
- 19:41client tell me how much they love the tax organizer from this
- 19:43year. That's not true. I have one client ever tell me how much
- 19:45they love that binder and tax organizer. But I hear about this
- 19:50value add every single year especially if a client doesn't
- 19:53get it and that is the 1099 value add. So what we did was we
- 19:58created a list of which custodians which companies the
- 20:02client should receive a 1099 from Allianz Prudential Schwab
- 20:05fidelity, whatever this is, we capture that information inside
- 20:09of our CRM. We use Mail merging to create a value add and we say
- 20:13and we created a checklist, Mr. And Mrs. Client as you prepare
- 20:16for this year's tax season, we wanted to take this time to
- 20:19provide you with a courtesy list of what we think you're going to
- 20:22receive 1099s on. It's going to be xy and z companies
- 20:26custodians, please make sure you watch out for those. And by the
- 20:29way, Mr. Mrs. Client, if you don't receive those ones, and
- 20:32their custodian or Charles Schwab or one of the companies
- 20:35are affiliated with, please contact us. Our team will make
- 20:38sure we put a copy in your box.com account. This was
- 20:41tremendous. This was gangbusters. Why? Because our
- 20:46responsibility was to take complex topics and make them
- 20:50super simple for clients. And this allowed us to do that they
- 20:54love this checklist. And so at the end of every January this
- 20:57goes out it's one of the first things that they receive.
- 20:59Clients take pictures of it on the refrigerator, they magnet it
- 21:03up there and they start check marking the box of when they
- 21:06start receiving these 1099s and if they're missing one, it
- 21:09brings it to the top of mind attention. So when we talk about
- 21:12value add, so a value add is a client deliverable that takes a
- 21:15complex topic and boils it down to as simple as possible in a
- 21:19one page if we can, if we can't make it more than one page. It's
- 21:24certainly not more than two. We don't in our office present 80
- 21:29to 100 page print out to client builders or financial plan. Why?
- 21:33Because we care about progress not prettiness. What does that
- 21:36mean? Whenever I've seen a client carry around 100 page
- 21:39booklet of financial plans, their execution on any of those
- 21:43is marginal at best. And also money's fluid. Those plans are
- 21:47static. You print them down, it's done. And same is true with
- 21:50our value ads. We print them down that's a static piece.
- 21:53Money's in motion. Money's constantly in motion. So on our
- 21:57value adds, we try to keep them on one page. We deliver a value
- 22:00at every single quarter to a client. Our value adds repeat
- 22:03every couple of years. Why? Because they matter every couple
- 22:06of years. The 1099 is a regular one. We tried to we tried to say
- 22:11hey, maybe we'll do something different. But we just had an
- 22:13overwhelming response from our clients that they loved it. So
- 22:16why are we going to change something that the clients
- 22:17absolutely love? Why would we take something that is working
- 22:21really successfully and then say oh, let's not do that anymore?
- 22:24That was too successful. So we're conscientious of doing
- 22:28that. Alright, so now we've grabbed these tax information.
- 22:31And now we know a couple of different things. And next value
- 22:34add that you can do we don't do this with our clients. We have
- 22:37this conversation in our meeting. So this becomes part of
- 22:39our homework sheet. So as I mentioned inside of Infinity,
- 22:42our CRM, we capture a lot of client data, our brain trust,
- 22:46and then we created something my especially our mom and dad
- 22:48created this years and years ago, and this was called a
- 22:50homework sheet and the homework sheet used to be literally a
- 22:53carbon sheet of paper. So it was a piece of paper that had a
- 22:55carbon copy. Out the talking points in the conversation, they
- 23:01would list what the financial advisor was going to do and they
- 23:03would list the client homework on there. And then they would
- 23:06rip off the carbon sheet but one copy went what the client wants
- 23:09to do with us. Today we have upgraded that and the whole
- 23:13sheet prints out vitals for us. And so just like if you were
- 23:17going into a doctor's office and they have like your vitals
- 23:20reported on the chart, that's exact same thing. We call it a
- 23:23homework sheet because it is a homework that we need to do as
- 23:26financial advisors or the clients to the one my mom and
- 23:29dad started. We still have a section for financial advisors
- 23:31and we have a section for the client of who's going to do what
- 23:34because as financial advisors are some things we can do but
- 23:37there's some things the client just has to do. Get us your pay
- 23:39stub get us your employer booklet change your allocations
- 23:42on a third party managed platform. You know get us your
- 23:45wills and trusts there are things the client has to go and
- 23:47do but I want to follow up on so we keep that homework in place
- 23:50and then our relationship managers will follow up in two
- 23:53weeks. I am a huge advocate of setting client deadlines why
- 23:57Parkinson's Law. The work takes up the amount of time that you
- 24:01allow for it. So I will say to a client, I will say hey, listen,
- 24:04we just finished all your estate planning. One of the greatest
- 24:06mistakes that I see clients make is they pay 10s of 1000s of
- 24:09dollars for this wonderful estate plan comes this beautiful
- 24:12leather binder and then they forget to update the beneficiary
- 24:16designations. I'm going to make sure your custodian accounts are
- 24:19updated with all the investment new ones that we have here. But
- 24:22Mr. Mrs. Client, can you go to your bank? Can you go to your
- 24:24title agency, can you go to your employer? Can you get these
- 24:27beneficiaries updated? Yeah, we'll totally do that. We're not
- 24:30going to forget great. I'd like to set a deadline around this
- 24:33just so that I don't become increasingly annoying. And you
- 24:36already know Mr. Mrs. Client, I am a huge control freak. I need
- 24:40to see verification that these things are done. Not because I
- 24:43don't trust you. I don't trust the person processing this
- 24:46paperwork on the other end. I want to see that this has been
- 24:49updated and the clients would want to get a laugh out of that.
- 24:52And I said Mr. Mrs. client can we agreed to have this completed
- 24:55in the next 30 days? Great. I'm gonna have my relationship
- 24:58manager call you on the 31st day if we don't have everything or
- 25:01we're gonna remind you,
- 25:02is that okay with you? Yes. And guess what? I was always going
- 25:05to do that. But now I have their acquiesce now I have their buy
- 25:08in now. I have their agreement that they're on board with this
- 25:12plan. And I will have the relationship managers call two
- 25:15or three times until this gets done. Why? Because it's
- 25:17important to get done if you've ever sat across from a widow or
- 25:21widower that didn't have their beneficiaries updated and now
- 25:24you gotta go through the whole probate process. Oh, you only
- 25:27make that mistake one time. And so I become incredibly annoying.
- 25:30I've seen this done as much as I possibly can, and an advocation
- 25:33for our clients. And I've never had anyone say hey, I really
- 25:36don't like that. They're like, no, this is fantastic. This is
- 25:40what I need. Please stay on top of me. I know I'm not doing my
- 25:43end of this and I need to get this done. So that's one of the
- 25:46reasons that we do that. We take on our homework sheet as part of
- 25:49those vitals, we also write down their taxable income. So we'll
- 25:53have their AGI we'll have their taxable income. We'll have their
- 25:56estimated taxes last year we'll have their marginal and their
- 25:59effective tax rate. And this is really nice for us as financial
- 26:02advisors because then when we're there, we're doing the planning,
- 26:06we can say well actually hold on last year, I see that you're in
- 26:09the 28% tax bracket. What if we did and we'll grab the guide
- 26:12that retirement Tax Services gives us we'll look at the tax
- 26:15chart and we'll say hey, what if we converted, you know, 75,000
- 26:18out of your IRA to a Roth so we'll continue tax planning as
- 26:21part of our dialogue. We don't do or have conversions. We
- 26:24really, really, really, really tried to dissuade clients from
- 26:27doing Roth conversions until October of every year October we
- 26:31get really, really busy doing Roth conversions, because
- 26:33oftentimes clients don't know what their income is going to
- 26:36be. And if we wait until that 10th month, we got a pretty good
- 26:40idea. So we've got a really good understanding of where they're
- 26:43going to end up income tax wise, and we also know what their tax
- 26:46brackets are going to be at that time. So that makes it a really
- 26:50powerful opportunity. But it is amazing. The credibility you
- 26:53will get when you look down at your form. And now that homework
- 26:56sheet is now on digitize, we put it on our Remarkables we take
- 26:59our notes, clients do not get a copy of it. Now if there's
- 27:02something we change is just internal for us. But that's also
- 27:05our pulse point when we do our dictation. So when we finish up
- 27:08our meeting and we'll go out we'll do our dictation. I'll
- 27:11pull up the homework sheet and we'll make sure that we talk
- 27:14about each one of those pulse points on that and that's been
- 27:17really great for individuals like me that you have a really
- 27:20powerful conversation. And maybe you know, with all the financial
- 27:24advisors, you're going through 45 minutes of stuff and then one
- 27:27little note can trigger Oh yeah, talk about X, Y and Z in the
- 27:30future. So it's been really great. And it's wonderful to
- 27:33look down and say well, actually so last year I see that you're
- 27:36at a 22% tax bracket, and 20% whatever that is, and then the
- 27:39client is like, oh gosh, I love that you keep track of these
- 27:43things because they're not. They're not their whole world
- 27:46our whole world is their finances. Their whole world is
- 27:48not. Their whole world is their job and their retirement, and
- 27:52their family and their health and all of these other things
- 27:55that they have. They trusted us to take care of this aspect of
- 27:58it. So really powerful. So once you have all that information,
- 28:01it's great to capture it and put it inside of your CRM and then
- 28:04outline over the summer. What are your value ads going to be
- 28:07for either this year or next year? Doing all that forward?
- 28:10Planning because you just got all of this information from the
- 28:14clients. If you're sitting here listening to the things, saying
- 28:17Jamie that's all great, but I'm a one man shop. I don't know how
- 28:20I'm gonna accomplish all of this, or I have an assistant but
- 28:23I think this might exceed their skill level. I don't feel real
- 28:26comfortable getting your tax return. Email us at
- 28:29lifestyle@theperfectria.com. There are several paraplanner in
- 28:32firms out there that offer this sort of back office support
- 28:35solution. I'd be happy to make an introduction. We've used some
- 28:38in the past. We stopped using them just because we had enough
- 28:41personnel on board that our personnel was taking over this,
- 28:45but I'd be happy to begin introduction to a company that
- 28:47could assist you in this capacity. And at least get this
- 28:50information in there and done. This doesn't have to be a full
- 28:53time you gotta have people for projects there CFPs out there
- 28:57for hire all day long. And you could say hey, I'm gonna hire
- 29:00you. I want you to work on inputting all the tax
- 29:02information, we created a module inside of our CRM, go through
- 29:05every single tax return through the month of May and June. Add
- 29:09this information in - garbage in garbage out. You got to spot
- 29:12check and even if they don't go credentials are spot check their
- 29:15information make sure everything is good so that when you extract
- 29:18that information to run your value add you have garbage
- 29:21pretty down on the paper and not and report that to the client.
- 29:24There's nothing more embarrassing. I hate not having
- 29:27the right information on a client deliverable and it could
- 29:30be something stupid. And a lot of times it's we sold that
- 29:33vacation property last year but it's still showing up on the net
- 29:36worth report. Can't stand when that happens. TPR Nation! This
- 29:39is Jamie Shilanski in an episode of Worlds of Conquer. Tons of
- 29:43action items for you right now to take forward momentum action
- 29:46on. So use the end of this tax season to start planning for
- 29:49your value adds, start doing the work to set you up for success
- 29:52with the clients later. But most importantly, go find people who
- 29:55share your values and change the world.