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Encore Episode: New Client Onboarding - What Information New Prospects and Clients Provide · The Perfect RIA

0:13
Amber: Hi TPR Nation Amber here from your Follow up Fridays.
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Today we're excited to share another encore episode of Worlds
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to Conquer as Jamie goes in depth into the information that
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prospects provide with the personal financial factfinder.
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And if you're looking for more training on the prospect
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process, be sure to email us at lifestyle@theperfectria.com to
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learn how you can sign up for our newest masterclass.
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Jamie: Welcome back to TPR Nation this is Jamie Shilanski
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in an episode of Worlds to Conquer and in this four part
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series, we are going to be talking about how we onboard new
0:58
clients. So the transition from when you are a prospect to when
1:02
you are a client, and last week we really dove in and talked
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about setting expectations with prospects. We talked a lot about
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how our relationship managers handle speaking with prospects
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about our schedule, how they can get in when they can get in to
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see a financial advisor. And of course at our RIA Shilanski and
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Associates we charge for our initial prospect meeting. So how
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does the relationship manager collect that fee? What are those
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fees? And what do we deliver to those prospects for that feed
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during that initial consultation, and this week,
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what we're going to unpack on this episode is what we expect
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prospects to give us prior to that initial conversation with
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them. What we go through in preparation for that initial
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consultation meeting with a prospect who we hope is going to
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become a new client, and then we will wrap it up with what our
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deliverables are because if we're charging 500 to $1,500,
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for a consultation, what does the prospect anticipate to get
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out of that meeting? And do we apply it to the regular ongoing
2:01
financial planning fees? Do not forget that during the month of
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October we're talking all about onboarding brand new clients. As
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always, we're going to start with basics and basics is
2:12
wrapped around our terminology. And this is really important to
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understand you as a financial advisor might pick up on this
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very quickly, but you'd be very surprised if your team does not
2:22
understand the definitions of these words. So prospect and
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client, a prospect is somebody that we want to do business with
2:28
potentially or they think that they want to do business with us
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and a client is somebody that has hired you for a service. So
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in order for somebody to become a client, they have to first
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have some type of agreement. They have to agree to engage
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with us, because we charge for our initial consultation, they
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sign a one page contract that says hey, we're gonna have this
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hour long conversation. Here's what it entails, here's what
2:55
you're entitled to. Here's our guarantee of providing value
2:58
during that consultation. And here's the cost of what it takes
3:02
to in order to meet with one of us. So, first, we start with an
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engagement agreement of some sort. Ours is a one page
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contract. If you become a full fledged financial planning
3:12
client, we're going to have much longer extensive contract
3:15
defining the scope of our relationship. The second element
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to become a client is that there has to be an exchange of money.
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So there are two elements that define a client relationship for
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our firm. And that is one an agreement that something is
3:30
going to be done. That's our one page contract or our larger
3:33
financial advisor agreement. For people that want full fledged
3:36
financial planning throughout the remainder of the year. And
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then second of all, an exchange of money has to happen. And so
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that is somebody either paying for a consultation, they're
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paying for financial planning fees, or they're transferring
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assets and now we're going to be charged an asset under
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management fee. And this is really important to understand,
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because a lot of financial advisors, we kind of have these
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weird hybrid practices, not everything is identical,
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especially if you've been in business for a really long time.
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So in our RIA we are fee and AUM and that means that we charge a
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financial planning fee for developing the financial plan,
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our retainer for maintaining it and having more extensive
4:18
conversations outside of just talking about investments. Now
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we also charge an asset under management fee for investment
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management of a portfolio. We do not do insurance only clients.
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So if you only have annuities or there's only some IUL UL VUL
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product out there, and that you want us to manage it for you. We
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don't do that in our RIA. Maybe you do that as a successful
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financial advisor. What we have found is that we work best when
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we are 100% involved and not 10% involved. Anytime that we've
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done any type of one off where we said okay, sure. You only
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want me to manage X I'll do that. It just doesn't work for
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us. We're all or nothing. Same thing when we meet with a couple
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that maybe he manages our finances separately, and they
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say hey, you know, I'm the husband in this relationship I'd
5:11
really like to hire you, my wife is really not involved in the
5:13
finances I make all the decisions, can we go ahead and
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move forward? And then my cheeky responses to that is that I'm
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not the other woman and in any situation and I won't be that
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person that's involved in your finances without your wife
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participating also, and same thing goes for the women that
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just want to meet with me and they make all the decisions in
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their household. I tell them the same thing. I'm not the other
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woman in a situation your husband has to come to this
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table. And one of you can be the decision maker but both of you
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have to be committed to this you both have to buy into the
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financial planning. Otherwise, it's just not gonna work for me.
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Now that we've defined what a client is versus a prospect. And
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a prospect is somebody that wants to meet with us. They just
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want one time advice. They want to see if we're a good fit and
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we want to see if they're a good fit for us in return, right?
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Just because somebody is willing to hire you doesn't mean you
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should take them on as a client. Listen to your gut instincts.
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Listen to those red flags when they come up in a meeting.
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Generally, my red flag is when somebody starts hitting me up on
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returns and asking me what I guarantee was my average
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portfolio run all of those like red flag questions because I
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believe that if you live by the markets, you will die by the
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markets. And if somebody is only interested in who's going to
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give them the greatest rate of return possible, then they're
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missing the larger concept for me, which is the comprehensive
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financial planning. So just because somebody wants to hire
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you doesn't mean that you should take them on as a client. So
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when a prospect calls our firm or emails or text us online and
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asks for an appointment, our relationship managers are going
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to hyper gear and they're going to start tracking every
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interaction that they possibly have with that prospect. I want
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to know where did they come from? How many times have they
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contact our office to get an appointment? Did they contact us
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through a webform? Did they email us? Did they go through a
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referral option? How what is that source that they came from?
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And we tracked that top of the funnel because I want to know
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what's working in our marketing. Where should we put the most
7:12
amount of energy and dollars? And then also Where's where are
7:15
we neglecting? Last year in 2021 and 20, the beginning of 2022 we
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had a flood of prospects to Shilanski and Associates, tons
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of requests, unrealistic numbers. Which is fabulous, what
7:32
a great problem to have. But just recently at our summer
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leadership meeting with our lead relationship manager, we sat
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down and we started talking about where they're all coming
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from. And then our operations team pulled the new client log,
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and we discovered that we had only had two referrals in the
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last year onboard new clients. Now as a financial advisory
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firm, we normally get probably 12 to 15 solid client referrals
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every single year. But all of a sudden, we have stopped getting
8:00
client referrals because we stopped asking, we'd have this
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other valve of marketing turned on. And it was providing such a
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wealth of opportunity for us that we completely neglected to
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be cultivating those referral relationships and oftentimes
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your centers of influence your clients won't exactly know how
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to refer other people to you. And that's something we have a
8:23
lot of coaching with our centers of influence and our clients
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around. But when we took our foot off of that gas pedal, we
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completely neglected our source of referrals, and it showed
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statistically on a report. So it's one thing that we want to
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make sure that we're keeping our eye on the ball but also what
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else is happening on the core. What areas are we neglecting
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that maybe we need to put a little bit more energy or at
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least a balanced amount of energy towards so they'll hit
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that top of the funnel? And then I want to know how long does it
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take before they do one of two things in order to get on our
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calendar. They have to sign a prospect has to sign our one
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page agreement for the consultation. And then second of
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all, they have to pay up front. Now we have 100% value
9:05
guaranteed promise that we make to prospect so if you pay for
9:09
your appointment and you feel at the end of the conversation
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talking to one of our financial advisors that you did not get
9:14
value out of that meeting. Then we will 100% refund, period. No
9:19
problem. Do we sometimes have to refund people? Yeah, absolutely.
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It's an ambiguous question. Do we provide you with value that's
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completely subjective? It's a yes or no and it's in your
9:30
personal opinion. Since I've been doing this I've only ever
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had to refund two people. One of them was my choice. We asked for
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a lot of information, which we're going to dive into here in
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just a moment from a prospect. And when we called, but it was a
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telephone appointment. They live in a remote village and we said
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great, how can we be of help to you? And she said, I don't know.
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I gave you all my information how can you help me. And as we
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began to ask question, she gave us monosyllabic answers, it was
9:57
yes or no. We really couldn't get a lot out of her in this
10:01
conversation. So when we wrapped it up, we went through our best
10:05
you know, sort of blind financial planning since she
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wasn't giving us anything and we said based on everything that
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you delivered on our prospect appointment, here's what we see
10:13
here is areas that you need to work on. And then we asked if
10:16
this was of any value she said yes, I didn't feel like it was
10:20
we refunded the fee because I want to sleep at night and I and
10:24
I knew that appointment was off, we just weren't connecting. So
10:27
it can happen it can happen to the best of us and that's okay.
10:30
We want to make sure that we're delivering high quality
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consultations, high quality meetings or answering questions
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we're delivering massive value. And if we fall short of that, we
10:40
have a choice. We can either 100% refund the fee, they can
10:43
switch for our financial advisor or we can just say you know what
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this meeting we didn't really get accomplished everything I
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wanted to, let's go have that second consultation. It rarely
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happens, but when it does, I want to know how I'm pivoting
10:54
where I'm moving to. So now let's dive into everything I've
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asked a prospect to bring us and this could really go to almost
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the first two meetings that we have with someone so we have
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that prospect meeting and that prospect as Micah Shilanski
11:08
probably shared with you for our RIA Shilanski and Associates, it
11:11
is a no sell sell. And this is really really difficult for a
11:15
lot of our old timers out there that are currently in that
11:18
aggressive sale mode. We have to flip it it's the no sell sell is
11:22
that by delivering so much value during that 60 minutes that
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we're going to spend together and answering all of the client
11:28
questions. I'm not going to pitch the prospect. In fact, if
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I do my job, right, and I have absolutely inundated them with
11:36
value, then they're going to ask me, How do I continue to work
11:39
with you? So in our office, we call that that a no sell sell is
11:43
that you're going to deliver so much value that at the end they
11:46
are going to as you how they can give you money to continue to
11:50
work with you because they've just been so overwhelmed by
11:53
value. We ask for a ton of information during our initial
11:58
consultation with a prospect. We almost always get the
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information. Sometimes we'll get a prospect calling in a panic
12:05
and saying wow, I really underestimated how much
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information you guys needed before my appointment. Do you
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think I should reschedule? Our relationship managers have a
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really great script for dealing with that. If a prospect does
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not give us all of the information that we request, we
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will absolutely still have that appointment. But we also have
12:21
the opportunity to put a little bit more responsibility on that
12:23
prospect that we did ask them for a lot of things that they
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didn't deliver to us. So our relationship managers won't
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verbally go through the list and then we will also send them a
12:32
written list of everything that we're looking for. And we'll do
12:35
a one page summary that says hey, we know we want your lien
12:38
on earning statements. We want the last three years taxes. We
12:41
want statements from investment accounts that you have. We want
12:44
copies your estate planning so that could be your for estate
12:48
planning documents, which is your advanced medical health
12:51
care directive, your durable power of attorney your last will
12:53
and testament and potentially trust if you have one in place.
12:57
I also want all your employment documents. So if you're working
12:59
for a corporation and you have a benefits package, I want all of
13:03
that too, as you can see, this is a tremendous amount of
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information that we are putting an onerous on the prospect to
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deliver us ahead of time and then also we're going to give
13:13
them what's referred to as our personal financial factfinder.
13:16
And that personal financial factfinder I absolutely love
13:19
because we were dealing with a business coach one time and he
13:22
said okay, give us everything that you asked the prospect for.
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So we gave them everything we asked the prospect for and I
13:28
think it was the first time he ever had a list this extensive
13:31
because he ended up coming back to us and said, Are you kidding
13:35
me? Who really gives you this information? And we said, you
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know, probably the high 90 percentile of people that that
13:41
request a meeting with us are going to give us almost all of
13:44
this information. And he scoffed and he said I would never fill
13:48
all this information out. I would never give it to you. And
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we were like, well great
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because you are not the ideal client we would never hire you
13:54
we would not work with you anyway in that capacity. You're
13:58
a great business coach, you would not be our ideal client.
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It's 100% acceptable that you wouldn't fill out this
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information we wouldn't ask you to in the first place. Alright,
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so now here's what we're gonna go through on the personal
14:08
financial factfinder. I'm going to walk you through all the
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different sections of information, and you can take
14:13
notes on the information that we're asking for. And remember,
14:16
when we're going through this personal financial factfinder a
14:19
couple of the things that we're setting the tone for with our
14:22
prospects that we hope to become clients is what we're going to
14:25
do during this analysis. And during this analysis, we're
14:28
gonna see are your assets properly positioned? Right? What
14:32
is your present method of savings? And what is it going to
14:35
take to maximize it to hit your long term retirement income
14:39
goals? What's your pre tax and after tax strategy, right,
14:43
because we were really big on having a five to 10 year tax
14:46
plan. Okay. How much capital are you need in order to feel
14:49
comfortable for retirement? What kind of savings and investments
14:53
are you going to need to hit your goals before retirement?
14:55
Right? We are comprehensive financial planners. We want
14:57
people spending money today, but not intending them from their
15:00
goals tomorrow. How would you set aside each month from
15:04
savings and investments? What's the impact on inflation going to
15:07
be over the long term for your savings and investments? What
15:10
kind of tax advantaged investments are best suited for
15:12
your particular needs? What type of monthly income are you and
15:15
your family going to need? In the event of you or your spouse
15:19
preseason the other or both of you doing that? And then of
15:23
course, we'll look at loan Long Term Life and disability
15:25
insurance and make sure everything's properly
15:27
positioned. So we'll give them this personal financial
15:29
factfinder and it is I believe, about 11 pages long. And
15:37
one I'm going to ask for their family data. And this is all of
15:40
their pertinent for one - one information on them. Assuming we
15:45
have a married couple, and then also their children. A couple of
15:49
things we do a little bit differently than a lot of other
15:51
practices, and this is where you don't ask First Name, we ask
15:53
first legal names, we're really big on making sure we are
15:57
complying to the Know Your client roles. So we always ask
15:59
for driver's license or proof of government ID and then we make
16:02
sure that we have the legal name of the person that matches up
16:05
and here we're going to ask just their overall information right?
16:09
Their age, their sex their you know, education levels, all of
16:12
that sort of know your client. And now we're going to ask about
16:15
the children and we're gonna say are the adults are they
16:17
dependent where we add or receiving for college and then
16:20
section two, we're gonna dive into their personal information.
16:23
And this is occupations, who was working where and how long have
16:27
they worked at those different places, or are they already
16:29
retired? And then we're gonna also talk about their current
16:33
centers of influence. Are they working with accountants,
16:35
attorneys, other financial advisors? Are there other people
16:38
on their team that we maybe need to position ourselves to bring
16:41
in and then we'll dive down into section three. Section three is
16:46
going to be their employer benefits. So what type of
16:49
benefits do they have? And this is all a questionnaire right? So
16:52
this is twofold. Everything on this questionnaire. I'm asking
16:55
them to review their information and make selections. What do you
16:59
have, you know, for client A and client B. Now also, I'm going to
17:03
ask them for copies of the documents too, right. And it's
17:06
redundant, but we'll go a little bit into why in just a moment,
17:09
and section four I want to know their retirement objectives.
17:12
Right. When are we anticipating retirement? Do you plan on
17:15
working part time in retirement? Talk to me a little bit about
17:18
those goals. Alright, and then, sometimes for my younger
17:21
clients, especially my millennials, that they might
17:25
scratch out on personal financial Biplanar and instead
17:28
of saying retirement, they say financial freedom, and they're
17:30
giving me those target dates, most of them are choosing age 55
17:34
And that's because they've had it most of the time when I have
17:37
a prospect or a new client choose to be financially free by
17:40
55. They've lost a parent before that parent was able to retire
17:45
so we get a lot of value around money and why that matters so
17:48
much them section five, we're gonna go into the cash reserve
17:51
details, where is your money? And I want to know how many
17:55
savings accounts they have if their mattress stuffing if we've
17:58
gone to you know, silver coin in the gun safe at home, or all
18:03
those bank accounts. As you know, we take all of this
18:06
information and we dump it into our custom CRM called Infinity.
18:10
And we track every single one of these fields inside of infinity
18:14
for our value add reports that we run regularly for clients,
18:17
and we do track bank information. Right now it's
18:21
static fields. So we're just relying on the client to give us
18:24
a statement and their input of what these different account
18:26
values are. We don't use any account aggregation software at
18:29
this time. We used to use cash edge and a few other products,
18:34
but we ran into a lot of dual factor authentication issues
18:37
that just made this more cumbersome for clients to keep
18:39
up on that it did deliver value to them. So if you're using
18:43
something hit me up at lifestyle@theperfectria.com. I
18:45
would love to know what that is. I'm always looking for
18:47
strategies about how we can enhance the level of value that
18:51
we're providing our clients Section six, we dive into
18:54
different investments. Now here's where it's key. Here. I
18:57
asked you to fill out all the types of investments you have
19:00
either set. Do you have a TSA, a 403B, a 401K, a mutual fund or
19:04
money market? You know, give me everything and land write them
19:07
out and tell me whether or not you have a statement and what
19:10
type of account it is. And this is imperative to me because I'm
19:13
not relying on the client to have an accurate account value
19:16
account name account description on the personal financial
19:19
factfinder instead, I'm doing something different. I'm seeing
19:23
the client thinks that they have and then I'm going to compare it
19:26
to the statement that they actually have. If you have been
19:30
in business for a few years as a financial advisor, you know,
19:34
that a lot of times it's not what clients know, it's what
19:36
they think they know that isn't so right. And a lot of times
19:40
clients will tell me Oh, yeah, I have a Roth account. No problem
19:42
with that, funding that for a really long time, and I'll pull
19:45
it out and it's not a Roth, it's an IRA. Right. They might think
19:49
that they have a 401k but maybe they've been investing in a
19:52
deferred comp plan. And it's a 401A and they get confused. You
19:56
know, so there are all different things that that they have that
20:00
may not be so and I see this most in our next section. And
20:04
section seven is going to talk about present life insurance.
20:07
And here's where I see one of the most egregious mistakes that
20:11
a lot of prospects will think that they have adequate life
20:14
insurance, which of course all of us out there. You know how
20:17
much is enough? It's almost never enough, right? If you're
20:19
dealing with a widow or widower but a lot of times especially
20:23
those millennial clients will enroll in employer sponsored
20:27
life insurance, and think that they have adequate insurance in
20:30
place. I see this a lot with my union workers particularly IVW,
20:35
I see in some health care also. The life insurance will be
20:40
Accidental Death and Disability, which is so ambiguous. I get the
20:46
logistics of the policy, but I have sat there with medical
20:49
foreigners and told me that in order for them to determine
20:53
whether or not something's an accident, is subjective to the
20:56
person that the physician that is making the decision on the
21:00
death certificate. I have two examples here. Lost my grandpa
21:06
after surgery. In recovery. He had a heart attack, and they
21:10
marked it on his among on his death certificate that it was an
21:13
accidental death because he accidentally died as post
21:17
surgical. Then I had a cousin who was married to a man who was
21:22
on a lineman and working on the electricity pole, ended up
21:26
touching something a little hot, had a heart attack fell off the
21:29
pole and die and it was not ruled an accident. It was a
21:33
death of the heart attack for natural causes. So I'm a big fan
21:37
of supplemental insurance being accidental death and disability,
21:41
but not being your primary case for insurance. So I know a lot
21:46
of you out there probably have tons of insurance experience.
21:48
You've seen the game of different things that can happen
21:50
here is one area that you know financial advisors we know a lot
21:54
about, but we get a little shy because the public expects us to
21:58
be insurance salesmen. And that's not really the value that
22:01
we're trying to deliver. But we want to make sure that this is
22:03
an area that is taken care of for people. I also see a lot
22:06
long term health care, particularly people that are
22:09
involved in big church programs that they'll get a long term
22:12
health care plan in place that they think is going to
22:15
adequately provide for them for the rest of our life and may
22:18
provide around $40 of value when Long Term Care averages two to
22:22
$300 a day in value. So want to make sure we really watch that.
22:27
Section eight we're gonna talk about variable annuities and
22:30
variable life insurance details. We're going to be a little more
22:32
information there. Section nine we're going to drop down to
22:35
employer monthly benefit for pension details. And this is for
22:38
any individuals that have some type of defined benefit plan
22:41
with their employer and we want to know when they're eligible,
22:44
and we also want a good working history because sometimes people
22:47
have breaks in service or they leave service or they might
22:51
later in life go back and return to and we see this a lot with
22:53
school teachers that just get burnout and they go do a
22:56
different career. And they're just shy of how invested in
23:00
sight of some type of pension plan. And we've had an
23:02
opportunity to do a lot of planning between government
23:04
employees, teachers, and even military people that get out at
23:09
17 or 18 years and didn't get the full career benefit in order
23:13
to get them to get retirement benefits. We've had success in
23:17
having them go back and take a government job for two years
23:19
pounding those out buyback their military time, which counts
23:22
towards a pension for them. So we like to see those working
23:25
history to make sure we're optimizing any benefits
23:27
possible. All right, and then we go to section 10. And this is
23:30
money owed you. So any type of loans that you have, and this is
23:34
normally where we see some adult children that maybe have
23:36
borrowed money put inside of here, section 11 We go down into
23:39
your real estate portfolio. And I want everything everything
23:43
that you own. I want to know about vacation homes, investment
23:46
properties, cabins, all of that kind of information. I cannot
23:50
tell you how critical this real estate portfolio is. Not because
23:54
it adds to your net worth but instead because it's so
23:57
imperative when we talk about estate planning a lot of times
24:00
people will have a primary residence and then they'll have
24:02
investment property. And those types of properties are pretty
24:05
easy for adult children to know who is going to get what to
24:09
write. So and so it's going to get the primary residence we're
24:12
going to sell the investment property we're going to sell
24:14
both the primary and investment when mom and dad pass but is
24:17
that cabin is that lake house is that smaller valued asset that
24:23
causes the most amount of familiar grief. So I like to
24:26
know about all of those properties, especially so we can
24:29
get estate planning in place and make sure that we're not causing
24:32
any family drama after mom and dad pass away. And then we dive
24:36
into liabilities, what do they owe and who do they owe it to?
24:40
When we do a comprehensive financial plan, I wanna know who
24:42
are you borrowing money from and I want to know what interest
24:45
rates and you know, we like to have really strong relationships
24:48
with bankers and credit unions and if other opportunities
24:51
present themselves or they can maybe refinance or do something
24:54
differently, we're going to recommend that they do so. I'm
24:57
also really good into cash flow spending plans. I don't call it
25:00
a budget because budgets like a diet and we're all going to
25:03
break it it's cash flow spending plan is the language that I use.
25:06
So a lot of times when I ask for those auto loans will have that
25:09
payoff date and some type of explanation written on the
25:11
forum. Because somebody's really, really excited about
25:13
that. And then I'll come in and burst their bubble and tell him
25:15
that even when the car is paid off, we're gonna keep making
25:18
fake car payments to a car account, because the second you
25:21
pay off your car, equitably. Something goes wrong with it,
25:24
you have to repair it, and then you're like, Wow, do I spend
25:26
$2,000 repairing my vehicle or do I just trade it in and spend
25:31
50,000 upgrading the model. So if we have that car account,
25:35
then we've got a little flexibility that you can make a
25:37
decision that you can continue to repair a vehicle or you can
25:41
use it as a down payment. So we have a lot of cash flow spending
25:43
ideas that come out of this and we want to be able to make sure
25:46
we're capturing all of those liabilities. Okay, as we near
25:50
the bottom of our financial factfinder we're gonna go
25:53
through the income data. So this is salary and wages and bonus
25:57
compensation and deferred compensation plans. We wanna
26:01
know all the ways in which you and your spouse get money.
26:05
Section 14 we dropped down to income taxes, and I want to know
26:09
what they have filled out on their tax return. Now, I'm also
26:13
going to ask them for three years worth of tax returns,
26:15
right? But I want them to go through that tax return and sort
26:18
of mark these different areas that may apply to them so that
26:21
they can have that reinforced value a lot of what we do in
26:24
financial planning is around developing that five to 10 year
26:27
tax plan. And the more that clients become aware of what
26:31
they either know that isn't so or what they don't know. So we
26:35
can we can educate them, the more value we're able to deliver
26:38
in a relationship and then section 15 we anticipated future
26:42
income. This is the area that cracks me up the most because
26:45
this is where somebody always puts you got it anticipated
26:50
inheritance. So I see a lot of anticipated inheritance here.
26:54
But unless I'm working with mom and dad and I know their estate
26:58
planning, I really didn't the children from recognizing
27:02
anticipated future income as an inheritance because I have seen
27:06
a lot of estate planning documents that exclude the
27:09
children from getting as much as the children think that they're
27:12
going to get so unless I know that for a fact we exclude it as
27:16
part of our financial plan, but we just put it on our horizon
27:19
and something to know about. One of the good things on the
27:22
anticipated future income side of things too is if you have a
27:25
farm family, you work with a lot of people that have farmlands
27:29
that stay in the family. They'll kick out K1s and normally you'll
27:32
be able to see those here as well. They'll report that farm
27:35
income coming in Section 16. We talk about the survivor needs.
27:40
So what are we most concerned about? If our spouse had a
27:43
financial hardship, and this is where you're going to divulge
27:46
all of those fears? Right? My spouse is a spendthrift. My
27:50
spouse is handicapped and isn't able to get around if I'm not
27:54
here to take care of them. So all of those different survivor
27:58
needs that you want to make sure your financial advisor is aware
28:00
of, I want them inside of here so that we can make sure that
28:03
we're developing a financial plan that incorparates and
28:05
addreses those fears. Section 17 we are gonna jump down and move
28:06
the cash flow
28:09
and this is where you can use that word budget. For those of
28:13
you that meet Matthew Jarvis in person at a conference. He is
28:16
allergic to the word budget. He says it Boo-che so you'll have
28:20
to ask him about his thoughts on Boo-che's if you see him in
28:24
person, so in that monthly cash flow again, I don't call it a
28:27
budget. I call it a spending plan for people and I want to
28:30
know what their income is, how much are they bringing in on a
28:33
net basis? And where's the money going? I can also discern pretty
28:37
quickly that if a client totals up the monthly spending plan for
28:41
themselves, that they're pretty good at tracking where their
28:44
savings and where their money goes. If they leave that total
28:47
blank then I know that we have some self awareness about
28:49
spending habits that we don't want to address. So if they
28:53
don't have a total down at the bottom of that form, then I know
28:56
that we're gonna have a conversation about making sure
28:59
we have disciplines and habits in place. If they do total it
29:03
up. I know we're gonna have a really easy segue into talking
29:05
about savings. Section 18. We talked about other insurance.
29:08
This is where we're going to capture the disability, long
29:11
term care insurance, auto insurance, all of those details,
29:14
renter's insurance, everything inside and in Section 19. We're
29:17
going to come to almost the conclusion. Talking about the
29:21
estate planning what do you already have in place, if
29:24
anything, and so we'll ask you about those four documents. And
29:27
we'll also ask you about do you have q tip trusts, annual giving
29:31
trust, charitable trusts all of those more intricate levels of
29:35
trust as well. Then we'll ask the date that it was last done.
29:39
If you have any questions regarding it. Next we'll segue
29:43
into investment attitudes and risk tolerance. And so here I'll
29:47
do my due diligence and making sure that I check market those
29:49
risk tolerance for clients, which is a giant industry joke
29:53
in my opinion, because when markets are high clients are
29:55
risky and when markets are low, clients are conservative, but
29:58
sure we'll ask them to rate this because we don't have a better
30:01
solution for helping to identify risk. All right, then section 21
30:05
will go down to retirement goals. And this is telling me
30:08
all right, how much do you want? What do you what are you going
30:10
to bring in? What do you really want to spend? What do you want
30:13
to do when you're in retirement? And then we'll ask them to
30:16
finish out the financial factfinder by giving us a
30:19
retirement priorities and other goals and say alright, what are
30:23
you? What's important to you? Is it gardening? Is it advanced
30:26
education is it traveling? Is it purchasing boats or airplanes?
30:30
Where do we want to spend the most amount of money when we go
30:33
to retire? And then of course, we'll ask them we'll finish the
30:36
document, asking them for any questions that they have. And
30:39
we'll give them the checklist of attached documents that they
30:42
need to make sure that they include inside of their prospect
30:46
folder. We use an online system called box.com for the transfer
30:50
and share of information Box allows you to encrypt
30:52
information and share it back and forth. So it's a really
30:55
secure place that we have found that we push all clients. We
30:59
also deliver client information through box.com. Because the way
31:04
that you deliver information to a client is the way that they
31:06
will return that information for you. For example, if I had my
31:10
operations team send a blank account form for a client to
31:14
complete the email. That client will fill out that account form
31:18
and guess how they're going to send it back to me. They're
31:21
going to send it back unsecured via mail, because the way that I
31:25
sent the client information is the way they're going to return
31:27
that information to me. So we push all individuals to use
31:32
box.com in order to share securely information, and now
31:36
we're going to ask them to attach statements. I want their
31:39
incomes or the pay and leave statements I want their taxes,
31:42
minimally last two years ideally last three so I can see ebb and
31:46
flow of income I want any retirement account statements. I
31:49
want all insurance declaration policy pages, and then
31:53
additional items that they want to make sure that we have
31:55
purview to as well as estate planning documents. Do your
32:00
prospects give us all of this information? Yes, yes they do.
32:04
They have paid for a meeting. They really want help and
32:07
talking about their finances. They're going to give us all of
32:10
the information possible to give them educated opinions. And most
32:15
of the time, we have prospects tell us thank you so much. I've
32:18
been meaning to get all of this together for a really long time.
32:21
Nobody's asked me to go through this exercise. This was really
32:24
helpful. So prospects definitely give us all of this information,
32:29
anything if they were unable to get a statement or they didn't
32:31
have a leave in earnings statement. Generally, it's the
32:34
pay stub that comes in a little bit later. If we hit them right
32:36
between pay periods. They may give us their last but a lot of
32:39
times people say hey I get paid in 3 days. I was going to wait
32:41
and give you my most current one. If a prospect does not give
32:45
us all this information, will we still have the appointment? Yes,
32:48
of course we will. But our relationship managers will
32:51
sculpt that conversation saying hey, listen, you know we asked
32:54
for all the supporting information. You are not able to
32:56
get into it for whatever reason, but we're happy to answer your
32:59
questions during that meeting. And normally when we set that
33:02
tone, you'll find that prospects are a lot more compassionate to
33:07
you not being able to answer something because they didn't
33:09
provide something. They understand the rules of
33:12
engagement for having that meeting. And part of that was
33:15
getting all this information and delivering it to us. We can also
33:19
discern a lot about a prospect by how much information that
33:22
they're able to give us prior to that meeting. And then we can do
33:25
some questions. So one of the things in order for prospects to
33:29
meet with us is that our relationship managers are going
33:31
to ask them great, what kind of questions can we answer for you
33:33
during that meeting? How do we deliver the most value? What are
33:36
you hoping to get answers to during your consultation? And
33:39
we'll get a list of questions. Normally, no more than five. I
33:42
mean, sometimes we'll have a lot more. But normally it's about
33:45
five questions. And those five questions they have just armed
33:49
us with the ability to answer during that consultation. So
33:52
instead of us as financial advisors saying, I don't know it
33:55
depends, well, maybe it's this maybe it's that now we have the
33:58
information. Now we could pull up the statement, we can look at
34:00
their pace that we'd say hey, listen, I know you thought
34:02
you're maxing out 401k But actually you're only maxing the
34:06
employer contribution percentage of 4%. The actual value that you
34:10
can put inside this account is x. What do you think about why?
34:13
Now asking for all of this information also does a few
34:17
other things. One, it gives our team an entire leg up on getting
34:20
all the information and put it into our system after they've
34:23
become a client. It helps with the onboarding process. And then
34:27
if that person chooses to hire us there are no cell so that we
34:31
can begin building that financial plan because they've
34:34
given us all of this data to get started. Now if they're missing
34:38
information, which oftentimes happens, they'll get us most of
34:42
it that box.com file, but if they have neglected giving us
34:46
information in some area once they've decided to hire us and
34:49
move forward, they will say oh, by the way, I will go ahead and
34:51
go get X, Y and Z or maybe our relationship managers will say
34:54
well, you give us everything but your last three years taxes How
34:57
can we facilitate making that happen? And prospects are
35:00
expecting it to take a lot of time for you to go through their
35:03
information and build a financial plan. Because they
35:06
just went through this exercise of gathering all of that
35:08
information. So they already know how laborious it is to
35:12
gather all of those documents and give them over to someone
35:16
and they want you to take your time going through and giving
35:20
them an educated opinion or advice on the information that
35:23
they've provided. When the prospect appointment and we're
35:26
moving on to the onboarding for new clients. I will always ask
35:30
them, if this was a value and what other questions they have.
35:34
By the end of the meeting. They will normally tell you I think
35:36
that's it. I think you've answered everything. This has
35:39
been very valuable. Nobody's giving me this information
35:42
before. Thank you so much. I will get some sort of segue. And
35:46
then I say Mr. Mrs. Client, I don't know if this has ever
35:49
happened. But anytime I'm at the doctor's office and the doctor
35:53
says Do you have any more questions? I say no, they stand
35:57
up they touch that doorknob and all sudden I've got 50 Other
36:00
questions I forgot to ask. Mr. And Mrs. Client, I work with a
36:03
lot of doctors as a financial advisor. And we call this the
36:06
door knob role. So in our office, we call it the parking
36:09
lot rule as we conclude our meeting you are free and we're
36:12
going to hit that pavement and we're going to think of all of
36:15
the questions that you did not ask at this consultation. And
36:18
when those arrive I want you to email them to and then I give
36:22
them the email address that's not my email address but goes to
36:26
our relationship manager inbox. And when you got those
36:29
questions, I'm more than happy to follow up and give you that
36:32
information. Now, if they are a prospect and we have concluded
36:35
our appointment, and they have a lingering question, if it is a
36:40
question about something that was discussed or said in the
36:43
meeting, I will normally answer that. If it is a complicated
36:48
question, and they need more financial planning advice, or
36:51
they want a follow up of some sort then that's a second
36:54
consultation that either a fee or as an onboarding as a client.
36:58
We don't just sit here for alltime consultation fee and
37:01
answer your questions and demands for the rest of time.
37:04
And our relationship managers are empowered to know how, with
37:08
prospects if it's a quick question based on something that
37:10
happened during that
37:11
meeting something they said they misswrote a note or forgot what
37:15
they need to do. We're gonna answer that really quick for
37:18
them. But if they want continued financial planning advice than
37:20
they need to become a financial planning client. Alright, this
37:23
podcast is 100% about action items. It was super long because
37:28
I wanted to walk you through everything that we go through
37:30
when we talk to our prospects and we move them to the
37:33
onboarding stage of becoming in new client. And again, a
37:36
prospect is somebody that thinks they want to do business with
37:39
you or you think you want to do business with them. But there
37:42
has not been an exchange of money and there has not been an
37:44
agreement set forth. Once we have exchange of money and an
37:48
agreement that person become a client and our office we
37:52
practice the no sell sell which means we deliver so much value
37:56
in that financial planning meeting, that we have the
37:58
prospect ask us they continue to work at our firm on a ongoing
38:03
basis and we always listen to out gut instincts if we have a
38:07
red flag if we don't like how the conversation is going - You
38:10
do not have to allow everyone who's willing to hire you to
38:15
hire you. Prior to ever meeting with that prospect. We ask them
38:18
for a host of different information so that our
38:21
financial advisors can be prepared during that
38:23
consultation to review their questions and give answers. On
38:27
average. It takes a financial adviser about 30 minutes to one
38:31
hour of prep time prior to that meeting, to go through all of
38:35
the client questions and make sure that they are prepared. But
38:39
that really depends on the caliber of the financial advisor
38:42
and how they process information and like to prepare for
38:45
appointments. This can take 10 minutes of time. This can take
38:48
an hour of time. If it takes more than an hour time you need
38:51
to stop and because they have not fully hired you as a
38:54
financial planning client and in that prospect relationship so
38:59
making sure that you're really intentional. You don't play
39:01
office, you don't get the head trash about little Gushin on how
39:04
to answer this, but you're really going through the
39:05
questions, looking at the they've provided and delivering
39:09
value right off the get go. During that consultation. We
39:12
want to make sure that we are answering their questions even
39:15
if we are bursting at the seams with things that we want to tell
39:18
them based on all the information that we just
39:19
reviewed, and all the areas that they need to improve. We close
39:23
our mouth we open our ears and we listen to their questions
39:27
they have paid in our instance for our time and therefore we
39:31
owe it to them to answer their questions. First, we will end
39:34
that consultation with any additional advice or things that
39:37
we wanted to be aware of that they didn't ask questions about
39:40
and then we will always ask that prospect Mr. or Mrs. Client have
39:43
I provided you with value today and if you are asking for this
39:47
information if you are listening to clients if you are practicing
39:51
that no sell sell they will almost always say yes to that
39:55
question. Because the information that you have is
39:59
valuable. It is important and we've never ever, ever forget
40:03
that money is an exchange of value. And they have entrusted
40:07
you to help them in ways that they don't understand the
40:10
complexity of they're scared to make a mistake or their family
40:14
is so dependent on them getting it right. You have to provide
40:19
that level of advice to every person that you meet with. And
40:23
if you follow this formula that The Perfect RIA has laid out for
40:27
you, then there's no way you can't deliver massive value on a
40:31
routine basis and radically change lives.