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The Annuity Landscape and Savvy Hiring · The Perfect RIA

• 0:09
  Unknown:
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  Amber Kuhn: Hello TPR Nation. This is Amber Kuhn with your
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  Follow up Friday, where I'll be recapping this week's episode
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  highlights and action items. On Monday, Matt was joined by Brian
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  Smith, who's a wholesaler and co owner of Foundational Income
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  Associates and his expertise in annuities and insurance
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  products, Brian and Matt talked about how, with advisors who
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  don't use annuities, they can easily create an adversarial
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  relationship when a client or prospect brings up a product and
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  the advisor justice misses it, instead of listening to them and
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  connecting with a resource to provide the pros and the cons of
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  it. Brian said this isn't a situation where you have to go
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  at it alone. Brian said annuities are a tool. Some are
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  bad, some are good. He said, right now things are more
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  competitive and better than he's seen in the industry, and so
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  what he recommends is finding out what it is on a particular
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  product that interests a client. He said, People want to know
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  that you've done your research, and so Brian is able to provide
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  client facing material, include top recommendations and what to
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  consider. So he said he likes to be the guy behind the guy and
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  that expert behind the advisor who helps them move forward with
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  confidence. Brian said that the advisors who do best in this are
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  the ones who are educated that you don't need to have a
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  securities license, but there's a barrier to entry, so the
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  education can help. When advisors can provide more of a
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  comprehensive financial plan, they're typically more well
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  rounded and also understand that there's a tool for almost any
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  given need, and that if you aren't strong in one area, to
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  make sure that you bring in another. Expert, Brian also
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  pointed out that the best of the best know what they aren't good
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  at, and they know when to bring someone else in where they're
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  deficient. Brian said you need to look at the assets in your
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  book and whether they're doing what your clients want them to
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  do, and consider whether there's something better for them. Even
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  if you have old variable annuities, you can have someone
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  go through them and shop around, even for those who may not need
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  to change. Clients are appreciative knowing that you're
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  taking care of them. Matt And Brian then shifted to talk about
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  how this relates to taxes. Brian shared that if you move non
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  qualified money from one annuity to another annuity, it's
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  considered a 1035, exchange and tax free, and for non qualified
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  annuities, if you take a distribution, he said to
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  remember LIFO last in, first out, and that annuity income is
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  taxed as ordinary income. I also pointed out that in order to
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  spread out the liability of a tax gain, that annuitization on
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  a non qualified product is something that's advantageous.
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  Matt then shared that the biggest claims he's heard from
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  Eno providers right now are related to wire fraud and
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  advisors and not advising clients on taxation and as far
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  as how to make sure that advisors don't fall into traps
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  with us, Brian said that when this happens, it's usually with
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  an older policy that an advisor took over and just didn't know
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  what they have. So he recommends sending that over to someone
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  like himself, can really dig into it so there can ultimately
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  be enough information to make an educated decision. Let's get
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  into action items. If you have any annuities or insurance
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  products, or you go through them in detail, and if you don't have
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  any of those products, you still need to be having those
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  conversations with your clients. Lastly, you can connect with
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  Brian and learn more about him by visiting foundational
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  income.net on Thursday, Jamie shared some lessons recently
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  learned at shilanski and Associates, and specifically
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  with the COO in a hiring situation, they've been training
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  their coo during the past year to take over a lot of
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  responsibilities that have previously been a part of what
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  Jamie was doing. Part of this is so that Jamie or Micah don't
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  become a bottleneck in organization. They want to
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  continue to empower and grow their team so they aren't the
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  only ones calling the shots. She shared how she's always made the
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  hiring and firing decisions for the firm, and when it comes to
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  hiring, there's a group interview process, because she
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  wants the buy in from the team, because having the wrong person
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  brought in can cost you the good employees, but just always been
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  the one doing the hiring and firing. She's had to hand select
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  every team member. So instead, she wanted to start training her
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  coo to do this, they've been looking for a relationship
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  manager, which is a critical role, because they can make or
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  break the client experience, and they're required to be able to
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  foster and build relationships with this. Jamie spent some time
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  talking about the DISC profile and how with this rule, she
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  wants someone who is a strong s and just below that a strong I.
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  Jamie then went into the recent fail that they had in their
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  office with hiring someone her coo had a lot of candidates
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  coming in and was feeling overwhelmed and requested to
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  have team members start to screen them and ask questions.
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  This ended up being given to the person who was leaving the role
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  on positive terms. And so when she was screening, she was
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  looking through the lens of someone just like her. The word
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  Jamie said, the first mistake was made was the COO not asking
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  if this person had ever been responsible for hiring or
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  firing, which she hadn't. And the second mistake was not
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  sharing the parameters she was looking for and the appropriate
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  screening questions. Then the person who ended up getting
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  hired when they were coming in for their in person interview
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  had to reschedule for the day the COO wasn't in the office.
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  The COO then let the person leaving the firm do that in
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  person interview, and then she ended up having a virtual
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  interview over zoom once the COO saw the new hire in person, her
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  first impression was that she wasn't sure she would have hired
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  her. Unfortunately, the new hire had to miss her third day of
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  work due to a legitimate reason, but Jamie pointed out that
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  because of the situation, it was going to be more than one day
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  out of the office. Ultimately, she called out nine times in six
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  weeks, including during a mini surge, and Jamie said she didn't
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  think they understood the intensity of what they're doing
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  in the office. The COO disagreed, but what Jamie said
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  she was really solving for was that she didn't like
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  interviewing and needed someone in the role. But Jamie said that
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  it's so important to get the right person in the first time,
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  because firing someone is demoralizing. So what Jamie took
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  from the person constantly taking time off is she showed
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  she didn't care about her team or the clients. It's important
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  to protect the team, because everyone is interdependent with
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  this, Jamie recommended that the person be let go, because you
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  can't keep the wrong people in your organization, and that if
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  you keep the B and C team players, you're going to end up
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  losing the A team members. Ultimately, the COO fired the
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  person, and naturally, it's not a pleasant thing to go through.
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  But Jamie shared some lessons learned from this. The first is
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  to be super selective in the decision to hire someone, so
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  that you're not put in the position of firing them. You
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  need to make sure that the person you hire is the right one
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  for the right position at the right time. Another lesson
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  learned was with the handoff in Jamie's office, she said she
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  needed to stress the importance of making the right decision,
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  instead of quickly bringing someone in just to fill a role.
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  Jamie listeners about what starts at the beginning lasts
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  until the end. So with the new hire, they should be showing up
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  at their absolute best for those first 90 days. And if they
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  don't, that needs to be a trust immediately, and you need to set
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  an example. TPR Nation, that wraps up this week's recap thank
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  you for joining or team member who you think might benefit from
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  listening, and be sure to subscribe to The Perfect RIA
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  Podcast, so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, happy planning.
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  Unknown: Hold on, before we go.