Financial planning at it’s core helps shape a person’s finances around their life goals and purpose. It takes a deliberate approach to do it well. But are you as intentional about your own business as you are about planning?
On this episode of the Elementality podcast, Reese Harper interviews Matthew Jarvis of The Perfect RIA. Matthew believes you should be building your business to meet your personal values and dreams. It’s not easily done, and Reese and Matthew discuss how to define your priorities while making sure your clients respect the boundaries you set. You help your clients seek a life of clarity and peace around their money. Now, find out how to ensure you’re aligning your business life to fit within your terms.
Podcast Transcript
Matthew Jarvis:
Every calendar quarter, we do what we call a value add, and I think I’d love to have an offline discussion. I think there’s some similarities between our value adds and what you’re doing with Elements. Where you’re saying like, “Here’s a way we’re gonna proactively demonstrate our value in some area of the financial planning process.”
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
So as an example, this last quarter or two quarters ago, we sent out a beneficiary report. And you might be thinking, “That’s not valuable. The custodian does it.” Well, the custodian does it in percentages. No one thinks in percentages. So we say, “Mr. Or Mrs. Client, if something happened to you, each of your kids will get $1.3 million from your retirement accounts. Are you okay with that?” “Oh, I’ve never thought about it in that dollar amount.” And then we do that firm-wide so then I know that all of our beneficiaries were all reviewed in Q2 of 2021. And then we can look at it again in two years.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality. I am Abby Morton, CFP and producer of our podcast here at Elements. I love being a financial planner, but I know it’s a challenging profession as well. That’s why the number one goal of our show is to help you prosper as an advisor as you better connect with your clients. We know your time is very valuable. Plan on a good return when you spend it here with us.
Reese Harper:
Welcome to another episode of Elementality everybody. I am sitting inside of the Denver Sheraton downtown at the XYPN Planning Conference, and made special time to want to interview someone who I’ve admired for a while. Who’s built not only a successful advisory firm, but is a recent book author and has built a financial advisor network that helps advisors continue to improve their efficiencies and understand the trends in the industry and the direction that the market’s going, and maybe how to provide a lot of value to customers. I’d like to introduce you all to Matthew Jarvis. Matthew, thanks so much for joining me today.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’ve been following your work for a long time. I’m always fascinated by advisors who are being really intentional about their practice, and I feel like you’ve taken that to a whole another level, like let’s be really intentional with who we serve and how we demonstrate value. So, excited to have this conversation.
Reese Harper:
Oh, thanks a lot. Yeah, I mean, you haven’t had a chance to really unpack the journey of going from practice to advisor network, to coach to author, to trying to figure out what role that would play in your life. Let’s start with just background and getting into the industry and let the audience learn a little bit more about how you got into financial planning.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, I started in financial planning in 2003, which kinda pains me to count the years that that’s been.
Reese Harper:
I feel you.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, no kidding, man.
Reese Harper:
Would you be surprised to know that that was my first year.
Matthew Jarvis:
Was it really? Man, it must be that we have more connections than I thought.
Reese Harper:
I think it was like November.
Matthew Jarvis:
September. I was September. Yep.
Reese Harper:
Okay. It was Fall. It makes sense, ’cause school was probably done.
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s right. It’s time to do something.
Reese Harper:
It’s time to go get a job. Yeah, were you done with school or still in…
Matthew Jarvis:
Still in school. That’s it’s own story.
Reese Harper:
I think I was still in school, too. I hadn’t graduated yet, so I think my undergrad lasted about 20 years, so I’m just kidding.
Matthew Jarvis:
See I think I got my degree when I was 3.
Reese Harper:
Eight. It was like seven years or eight years. It wasn’t 20, but… So you were in undergrad at the time or you’re graduated… What were you doing at that time?
Matthew Jarvis:
You know, to be honest, I was working as a mechanic before then, ’cause I just enjoyed…
Reese Harper:
: Nice. Oh, that’s cool.
Matthew Jarvis:
Like in high school, I learned to play with my hands and it was a lot of fun, but then I realized there wasn’t a lot of career progression. Like that was it. Like you could be a mechanic…
Reese Harper:
You’re talking to a pianist. I was a pianist at the time, so…
Matthew Jarvis:
Oh yeah, see there you go.
Reese Harper:
No shame here about anything that’s not like that you didn’t know you’re gonna get your MBA and you’re gonna be a finance major.
Matthew Jarvis:
No. So it was fun, and then I realized, “Wait a second. Here I am in my early 20s and the guys I’m working with are in their 50s, and they’re making the same amount of money I am.”
Reese Harper:
Oh.
Matthew Jarvis:
And I’m like, “Wow. This has nowhere to go.”
Reese Harper:
Were you interested in cars though?
Matthew Jarvis:
Loved it. Yeah, I loved working on cars. It was a lot of fun. I probably did four years turning wrenches.
Reese Harper:
And then what got you thinking about something else? Did you see these people that were kind of like…
Matthew Jarvis:
Well, so actually, my dad had started in financial services in 1990, kind of insurance background, ’cause that’s how that was back… He was early in the asset management scene in the late ’90s. And he’d always been after me to join his practice. And Dad is a phenomenal financial planner. He works with me to this day. Just not a great business owner, which is what we see a lot of professionals… Right? You work a lot with dentists. There are some great dentists out there. Terrible business owners. Right? So he just wasn’t a great business owner. He’s a great guy and I worked with him for about five years. He had some health issues, which he’s recovered from. He had to retire in 2008, the depth of the financial crisis, he had to quit for some health issues.
Reese Harper:
Oh, dang.
Matthew Jarvis:
He’s better now, so I took it over. I bought him out and then we’ve grown dramatically since then.
Reese Harper:
When did you start figuring out that you weren’t really learning maybe everything you wanted to learn or made different decisions or…
Matthew Jarvis:
Oh… Took me, probably about six years of just trying to grind it out and not figuring it out.
Reese Harper:
Yeah, you’re being taught one thing, so you kind of learn what you’re being taught.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, you’re being taught to sell products. You’re being taught… Which, again, depending on your listeners, that’s a foreign concept now, I guess, but that was the thing, like you sold products, that was it.
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
And so I had this real conflict. I’m like, “Well, how do I know if the product’s right for the person?” And the manager would be like, “It’s right for them.” “Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like it.” “It’s right for everyone.”
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
Wait…
Reese Harper:
Do you wanna be in the business or not?
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s right. That’s right.
Reese Harper:
Then it’s right for them.
Matthew Jarvis:
“Everyone needs universal life insurance.” “Well, they’re saving for college.” “It’s a great tool for saving for college.” “I don’t think it is. Like the math doesn’t add up.” “Don’t worry about it.”
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
Max fund it. You know.
Reese Harper:
I went to my manager at Northwestern and I just said, “Hey, when I sell the product this way… ” And we had a thing called adjustable comp life…
Matthew Jarvis:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Reese Harper:
And they had a thing called TIB, which is the term insurance benefit that you blend in to this permanent product. And if I… I got pretty good with the illustration software ’cause I was wanting to calculate internal rate of return on these things. ‘Cause I was like, “Oh, if it’s someone’s retirement, I probably should know exactly what my conviction level is around it.” So I found that if I had just blended out my commissions completely and I didn’t get paid anything, it was actually really pretty good for the client. [chuckle] And then if I got paid well, it was like just okay, or it’s like, “Meh.” It’s probably worse than an intermediate bond. And I went and brought that to my manager, and that was his response to me. He’s like, “Do you wanna still be in the business or not?”
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s right.
Reese Harper:
“They want… Your clients want you to be in the business. That’s what they need.” And I was like, “Man, how many decades have we told ourselves these lies?” [chuckle]
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
At some point, we have to start saying, “I can’t be… I’m not an advisor, if my compensation’s driven by subjective choices. I’ve gotta just get paid my transparent fee.” So when did you… You change your mind in ’08, when your dad retired or forced retirement, did you wait till after?
Matthew Jarvis:
So, let’s see. It was the end of ’08 beginning ’09, depth of the financial crisis, he had to retire for health issues, he’s better now. And when that happened it was really abrupt, it was one day to the next. It’s a family story I’ll tell you another day. And so the next day I thought, “You know what? I think I’m just gonna quit. This is my sign. I’ve been doing this for five years. I’m not making any money. I’m maxed out on all my debt. I’m just gonna quit.” And this is a family story, my mom who was my office manager at the time, she’s like, “Well, if you quit, I’m gonna keep doing it. So knock yourself out, you do whatever you gotta do”. “Oh crap. Well, I guess I can’t quit.” So I said, “Fine, if I’m gonna keep doing this,” all those things I knew I needed to do, but I was afraid to do, like charge fees or fire clients that weren’t paying me, I’m like, “I’m just gonna do this ’cause I’m gonna go bankrupt in a couple of months, I might as well go out in a flame… In a ball of fire,” or whatever.
Matthew Jarvis:
So any clients that weren’t paying us, we either made them pay in a AUM fee or we dropped them and we stopped dealing with people who weren’t paying us, all this stuff. And then the practice started turning, and then I started getting tutoring, mentoring from advisors that had great practices. And suddenly I realised, like, “Oh, here’s how you be a great advisor, here’s the stuff that nobody ever told me,” and then my practice skyrocketed from there.
Reese Harper:
So when you first pivoted, did you have an idea of ideal… Identifying a particular target customer or who became your client?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, so before I pivoted, it was everybody. Just it’s anybody who could… Who had money, and then I realized, “Alright. The people I enjoy working with the most are retirees in my geographical area, that’s gonna be my niche.” Now some people might say, “Well, that’s not a very tight niche,” but in a way it’s a very tight niche compared to anybody and everybody.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. It’s something.
Matthew Jarvis:
So, once again, I’m only working with retirees, and at that point my minimum was, I think my minimum was 150,000 of AUM or about $1000 a year in fees, at 1%. So that became our first minimum, and that was a hard thing at that time. Now our minimums a million bucks and our fees are a lot higher, but…
Reese Harper:
Did you target them through events?
Matthew Jarvis:
So I got tired of… I did several seminars that were really, really bad. And one day I said, “Do you know what? I’m not going to… ” Actually, Reese, let me tell you how bad they were. We did one and we go there to the restaurant and one person shows up, Reese. One person shows up. So I do my presentation for the one person who’s just dying to get out of there, ’cause they’re like, “What the heck’s going on?” They leave, I’m crushed, my soul is crushed, the restaurant manager comes and says, “There’s a 30-person minimum on this event, you need to pay us for 30 meals.” So I’m thinking, “Oh my goodness, insults to injuries.” So I say, “Well, fine. Bring me the menu, I’m gonna order 30 to go meals ’cause I’m gonna pay for these, I’m gonna get them,” for the next two weeks, my wife and I and our little kids were eating to go food from this restaurant, ’cause I can’t afford to… It was terrible and so I just said, “You know what? I’m not ever gonna do… I’m not gonna buy dinner for strangers ever again, I’ll do client events.” I started working with Centers of Influence, which worked really well. I started finally figuring out how to network successfully.
Reese Harper:
I think people really do like… I think that market really does… I’m doing an event here at XYPN tonight, and I sent out an email for free dinner, “Come and listen to get CFP credit,” and we had way more people subscribe than we even have space for. I thought we would have 30 people out of, and get… Well, to get 10% of the audience that’s attending this event would come to our dinner or something. There’s three times that in RSVP right now, and we don’t have enough room in the restaurant. And I think it’s ’cause they wanna have steak, that’s it and so it’s like…
Matthew Jarvis:
Oh, they wanna have steak?
Matthew Jarvis:
Well, here was the other tough part, whether it was dinner events or just meting with prospects in general, is I wasn’t sure why a prospect would hire me. In fact, I even had a prospect once, they were like, “Matthew, you seem like a nice guy. And I don’t know, I just, I don’t understand why I would hire you?” The guy was being really sincere, he wasn’t trying to be rude, he was just like, “I don’t understand. Help me understand why I would hire you.” “Yeah, I guess, I don’t know.” And so that’s when I first started learning how to do one-page financial plans, I’m like, “Great. Let me just outline for you. It’s like… Here’s what we’re gonna do if we work together, and if that makes sense to you, then great, let’s work together. If it doesn’t make sense to you, perfect. There’s other advisors that can work with you.” I started doing one-page financial plans for my own head trash, so that I could be like, “Reese, if you pay me this is what I’ll do and if that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t pay me and it’s all… It’s cool, it’s not a problem.”
Reese Harper:
So before we get into that…
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah. Yeah. We’re jumping around.
Reese Harper:
Was that… Did you get that from Carl, or was that something you started doing and then Carl started coining one-page financial plan, Carl Richards?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah. I’m trying to remember when Carl’s book came out, I remember reading it. Oh, I learned to do one-page financial plans from Tom Gal, million dollar producer who, legendary advisor, he was recently on the Kitces’ podcast. He had done dozens of them, hundreds of them. Genius guy and I learned it from him. And he had a great practice, so I thought, “Well, if this works for Tom, it will work for me.”
Reese Harper:
Do you think this is like ’08, ’09, 2010?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah. About ’09, ’10. I think Richard’s book came out in ’12. Funny thing about Carl Richard’s book, there’s no one-page financial plans in the book. ‘Cause I bought the book, I’m like, “Oh cool, I can finally hear somebody else’s plans,” and I’m reading through it, I’m like, “Wait. Why are there no plans?”
Reese Harper:
Where is the one-page plan?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah. Where is it?
Reese Harper:
Yeah. It was on a diagram.
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s right.
Reese Harper:
And that diagram became very famous. Carl ends up doing an amazing job at conceptualizing things through a visual…
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, he does great work.
Reese Harper:
So it turns out that pictures are worth more than thousands of words.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah. I don’t mean any disrespect to his work. I think he does great stuff, I really admire him, but just his one-page financial plan book was devoid of one-page financial plans.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. That’s interesting. Okay, so if we go back to 2009, 2010, pricing at that point was, we’re gonna establish a minimum AUM balance of, we’ll call it 150 and we’re not gonna charge fixed fees yet.
Matthew Jarvis:
No, no, no.
Reese Harper:
And we’re gonna go after people in our community that are retired and we’re gonna do it how?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, so I cracked a couple of codes. One was I finally figured out how to get referrals from CPAs, which is a tricky thing to do, but once you’ve figured it out it works really well. Then I just started looking… There was his marketing genius years ago named, Chet Holmes. He died a few years ago, but he wrote this book called The Ultimate Sales Machine or ultimate marketing machine, and in it he talks about your dream 100. That we all have 100 clients or prospects that if they became clients, that would be all we would need. So I made a list of 100 people in my community that fit my niche, and I just thought, “Alright, where do these people go? What community events do they attend? What hobbies do they have? What charities do they support?” And I made sure I was at all of those events and doing…
Reese Harper:
So you were doing sales activity. You’re looking at this as a… It’s not… When you get that granular, to me, that shifts from marketing to now sales.
Matthew Jarvis:
Correct.
Reese Harper:
I’m gonna say it sales is just… Sales is really important. It’s actually probably the fastest way to build a business in wealth management, but you, rather than saying, “I’m gonna identify a target demographic that I’m gonna then market to, send out some ads and some mailers,” you’re just saying, “These are the humans that I know or have heard about… ”
Matthew Jarvis:
That I know of. Yeah, that showed up on a list or…
Reese Harper:
Okay, and I’m gonna target them.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, ’cause I had done all the marketing. For five years I had done all the marketing and I got zero results from it. And I ran up my credit… Maxed out my credit cards. So I started doing sales, if you will, because I had no more debt available to do marketing. I just couldn’t do anymore ’cause I was tapped out. It works… Dark place.
Reese Harper:
Does it feel in a… When did your… When do you remember getting to a place… About what year was it when you remember getting to a place where things were good or adequate or you felt like you made… Moved the needle? Describe the business at the point where it was, “Hey, I’m feeling good about things.”
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, probably was by 2012, I think. I could go back and look at my charts, it’d be glad to look at ’em with you. About 2012, I’d got my debt paid back off.
Reese Harper:
So three years after really… Maybe three years after really taking over?
Matthew Jarvis:
About three years after that, yeah.
Reese Harper:
Maybe a fourth year. Michael talks about that fourth year being…
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah he does.
Reese Harper:
A big pivot year. You’ve probably already shared all this information with your audience and members, so if I ask anything that’s too private, please just like tell me you’d rather not talk about it.
Matthew Jarvis:
When did I lose my hair? Early. I lost it early.
Reese Harper:
What would you say your main office… Your main overhead expenses are on your book right now? We’ve got two people we mentioned…
Matthew Jarvis:
Well, right now, so three people.
Reese Harper:
Okay. Sorry. I missed that.
Matthew Jarvis:
So Colin, Alex and Nathaniel, and then myself, as the fourth, but… And then we’ve got our office space and then we spend a lot on technology. Our Orion software cost us a lot of money.
Reese Harper:
So would you say between team and everything, if we take your compensation out of it, would you say you’ve got a little more than half of the revenue still available?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah. If you look at… I like to look at EBOC, Earnings Before Owners Comp, was a thing Kitces mentioned a few years ago. And so we always run north of a 50% margin.
Reese Harper:
Okay. But would 50 be an acceptable target for you?
Matthew Jarvis:
I think 50’s a great number. My good friend, Micah Shilanski, he’s always looking at a 70% number is his target. I think if you’re north of 40, you’re in a solid place. Now, obviously, depending on where your practice evolution is, that’s gonna ebb and flow. But yeah, I think 50 is a solid number.
Reese Harper:
And, so if you…
Matthew Jarvis:
You need that by the way, and I apologize for interrupting. What happens when the market turns down 50%? If you’re operating on a 10% margin, you’re not gonna make it through the next market downturn, so…
Reese Harper:
Would it be fair to say that you’re the only producer in the firm? You’re the client-facing advisor, or would you say that one of the other people that’s there would also be considered an advisor?
Matthew Jarvis:
Alex is now. So Alex joined our team last year as a client-facing advisor, and he’s starting to be rain-making as well.
Reese Harper:
Okay. So is there some relationships that he manages exclusively now?
Matthew Jarvis:
There are now. So I’m handing off about 90% of my relationships for Alex to take the lead in. So I’ll still come in and wave and smile and help him with case prep and whatnot, but I’ve been… This year I’ve been handing off, essentially all my clients relationships…
Reese Harper:
And are you choosing to compensate him on a percentage of the revenue or as a fixed salary with some kind of bonus target or something?
Matthew Jarvis:
Alex gets paid a base salary that’s healthy for our region, and then he gets a… He gets some bonus’s set up on gross revenue. And the reason it’s on gross is, that I control the net as a small business owner, and I don’t wanna manipulate that, and I don’t want him to feel like I’m manipulating it, right?
Reese Harper:
So if you had to look at it as… If you were to… I don’t… Maybe this is too much Q and A.
Matthew Jarvis:
No…
Reese Harper:
If you had to look at it… What you’d feel comfortable paying as a percentage of gross revenue, including the salary. So would you say, look, is this 20%? Is it 25%? Is it 15 to 18? Have you ever thought about it that way?
Matthew Jarvis:
I’ve never ever really thought about it that way. I’ve always looked, how do I… How can I be as efficient as possible? I’m always very, very slow to add positions, maybe too slow to my team chagrin. But I’m thinking, unless we’re following all of our systems to a T, I don’t wanna add another person because Parkinson’s law says… Yeah.
Reese Harper:
It weakens the system, right? Well, I…
Matthew Jarvis:
I think as a rule of thumb, hire your first person as quickly as you can, ’cause you need to have somebody to delegate. Don’t hire your second person until you’re hitting a million bucks of revenue, is my philosophy. So what I wanted to make sure with… With Alex, and I, again, I wanna be careful with his confidentiality as well, but I wanted to make sure that we were still viewing the entire practice as a team and not his book or my book. ‘Cause I didn’t want… ‘Cause I want him to be able to serve the existing clients, and I want him to also be hungry to bring in new clients. And so we’ve set up all of the bonus and comp structures on the overall revenue of the firm.
Reese Harper:
So he’s getting comped on your book too?
Matthew Jarvis:
Correct, because I want him to help on my book, I want…
Reese Harper:
Do you think that would be sustainable at three or four or five advisors, or is this like, “No, this is where I end in terms of me wanting to scale and this comp model works for my level of… ”
Matthew Jarvis:
It works for right now. I think comp models are always like, “What’s the least bad option?” Right now we’re trying to figure out equity compensation. Alex is saying, “Hey, I wanna buy into the firm.” Totally make sense. It’s a win for me because it gets him more attached to the firm, but now the question becomes, well at what multiple? What’s our valuation and…
Reese Harper:
What valuation, ’cause I could sell this equity to third parties. I could sell it to… I could keep it. I don’t wanna have a discounted internal sale too highly…
Matthew Jarvis:
I also don’t wanna do a full appraisal every year, I wanna… But what’s the number? Is it 2 1/2 gross? Is it 5 times EBOC? Is it 12 times EBITDA? What’s the…
Reese Harper:
Well, I wish you could reverse the tables ’cause… And ask me all the questions you probably are thinking about my own firm too, because I’m sure that you… I feel like I’m getting to ask all the fun questions and you’re probably… I’m sure that it would be interesting to compare notes.
Reese Harper:
I would be curious to know if you think what’s… What you believe the limiting factor is for other advisors to get to where you’ve gotten? What takes someone from 500 to 600,000 revenue to north of a million and pushing two million or north of two, what is the difference? Because you didn’t dramatically increase head count, there’s a lot of things I could point out, but I’m curious what you think, actually the driver was that changed… That makes you different from other firms.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, and we talk about this a lot on The Perfect RIA podcast, and it’s about just being incredibly intentional with your time. So just to pick an easy example, the studies say that the average person spends two to four hours a day checking email. I don’t check email because my team takes care of all of that. So right there, let’s say that that number’s accurate, three hours a day, right? So what is that? 15 hours a week, that’s two days, most people are pending a day and a half a week just on their email. So if all I do is just delegate my email, I’ve just freed up a day and a half a week. Now, I’m talking about 60 days a year, 70 days a year. I take six months out of the office a year at a minimum, and not checking email freed up a third of that time, to pick one example. Another would be, everything’s streamlined because we have a niche. I was showing an advisor this morning over breakfast our case prep for client meetings. It’s exactly the same for every single client, they get this report, this report, this report, this report, this report, in the same order. And so I can walk into my meetings, all my prep is there, just like a doctor would do or a dentist, or whomever. You just gotta be very intentional.
Reese Harper:
Talk to me about quality control as you continue to grow. How do you think you’ll… Well, let’s talk a little bit more about your process. Talk about the… What does it mean to be serviced properly in your firm? What standards of care are you applying to your clients to where you feel like you’re doing a good job? Talk to me about that.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah. I think our… We try to do two meetings with clients a year, which that’s whatever. And then one of our things is we do… Every calendar quarter we do what we call a value add. And I think… I’d love to have an offline discussion, I think there’s some similarities between our value adds and what you’re doing with Elements. Where you’re saying like, “Here’s a way we’re gonna proactively demonstrate our value in some area of the financial planning process.” So as an example, this last quarter or two quarters ago, we sent out a beneficiary report. Now, you might be thinking, “That’s not valuable, the custodian does it.” Well, the custodian does it in percentages, no one thinks in percentages, so we say, “Mr and Mrs. Kline, if something happened to you, each of your kids will get 1.3 million from your retirement accounts. Are you okay with that?” “Well, I’ve never thought about it in that dollar amount.” And then we do that firm-wide so then I know that all of our beneficiaries were all reviewed in Q2 of 2021, and then we can look at it again in two years.
Reese Harper:
Let’s take that example. Why did you frame it that way for the client? Did it cause them to take action, more likely?
Matthew Jarvis:
A lot of clients it did. So they’d look and they’d say, “Well, I can’t give Jimmy $1.3 million all at once, he’ll blow it.” Okay, well that’s what we’re set up to do, I’m like, “If that’s not a good idea then we need to start making changes now. Maybe we should start gifting now.” Even things like, does the custodian have your beneficiary recorded correctly? They lose that stuff all the time, I don’t know how. “Oh yeah, they… My client… My child got re-married.” “Perfect, let’s get that updated.” But then they’re seeing from us on the same frequency that were deducting our fee from their account, they’re saying, “Okay, Matthew and his team are doing something on our behalf.” Even, to you and I though, Reese, something like checking beneficiary seems pretty trivial, for the client it’s not ’cause they never think to check that.
Reese Harper:
One example of a value-add would be the beneficiary review. That’s happening off surge or on surge?
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s happening every calendar quarter when our fees are deducted from client accounts, I want them to have a value add in hand. In my thinking. I want them to see the fee that’s coming out of their account on one hand on the statement, and on the other hand… I know it’s digital now, but you get what I mean, they’re like, “Oh, here’s what Jarvis and his office did for me.” So that bills correlate, right? So every calendar quarter that’s going out, and then each surge cycle, we’re bringing in one or two of those value adds to the meeting, like, “Hey, we sent this to you last month and we wanna review it with you,” gives us a lot of discussion point for our meeting.
Reese Harper:
Do you have a… Do you guys have something where you’re like, “I feel like this is a gap for this client,” or besides the value adds, is there like a checklist you’re following where you’re like this… Or are you letting the meetings drive the actions that the client is… Needs? Or do the meetings drive the gaps and the question areas for you?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, for sure. When we’re taking on a new client, we’re doing a one-page financial plan, that gives us our action steps for the first year, and then they drop into this rotation of value adds that covers all the aspects of the financial planning process. So we know that they’re getting everything touched on every other year. But of course we’re starting the meetings with, “Hey, Reese. It’s really great to see. I’ve got a couple of things I wanna look at, but I wanna start with the questions and concerns that are in your mind. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Reese Harper:
That question is the… What you lead the meeting with?
Matthew Jarvis:
Every meeting. Every time I schedule an appointment, “Hey, listen. We’ve got some things we wanna look at, but we want to know first and foremost, what is on your mind?” Not, “Do you have any questions?” ‘Cause that’s an easy, no. “What’s on your mind?” They’ll say whatever it is, “Cool, Reese. What else is on your mind?” This sort of thing, and when I’m on my game I ask it three times. “Alright, Reese. And then what else, anything else that we wanna talk about?” And that’ll guide our discussion, and if they don’t have anything or they have simple things, then we’ll go into the value adds. The guard rails, we always look at guard rails.
Reese Harper:
Let’s talk about a meeting process. They come in, you’re gonna lead with this context, you’ll ask, “What’s on your mind?” Maybe press a second time to see if there’s anything else, and if you’re on your game the third time, you’ll say, “Is there anything else or what else?” That sounds a lot like a book I read called The Coaching Habit, which I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but that question…
Matthew Jarvis:
Coaching Habits a good book, Bill Bachrach was big into that, what’s important about money to you? That was one of his big things.
Reese Harper:
That feels like more of a fact-finding upfront question, the one that you’re doing seems like just a really natural, great way to get the client to open up. And it’s important not to give people too much to think about when you’re wanting them to respond, just what emotionally comes up, is, “Tell me what’s on my mind?”
Matthew Jarvis:
I actually got that from my CPA. So my CPA of all people, Mona Lux, is her name. She would sit down, I’d sit down with her to review my taxes and whatnot. She says, “Matthew, what’s on your mind?” “You know what? My taxes are on my mind.” “Yeah, yeah. What else is on your mind?” “Well, I’m trying to hire another employee.” “Well, what else is on your mind?” “Well, what’s the next level?” So that really drew it out.
Reese Harper:
So during the meeting what… Besides documenting those things you…
Reese Harper:
Where are you documenting those things right now?
Matthew Jarvis:
I just take paper notes, even if I’m doing a Zoom meet, I am still taking paper notes.
Reese Harper:
Do those go anywhere eventually?
Matthew Jarvis:
When I get done with the meeting after the client walks out and we say goodbye, I pull up Rev.com on my phone and I dictate a memo, and that includes any action items. So, I just commence my notes, and then I’d extra time for Colin, extra time for Nathaniel, take care of these things.
Reese Harper:
And then that goes into the CRM?
Matthew Jarvis:
That goes into our CRM.
Reese Harper:
And then the… What CRM do you use?
Matthew Jarvis:
Infinity, it’s based off of Zoho.
Reese Harper:
And then your client services manager or whatever you call that person, they’re following up with the tasks.
Matthew Jarvis:
Correct.
Reese Harper:
They’re in charge of all implementation?
Matthew Jarvis:
Correct.
Reese Harper:
So once you’ve dictated it, that’s really out of mind, you’re gone on to the next thing.
Matthew Jarvis:
That’s correct.
Reese Harper:
And then between that surge meeting and the next surge meeting, which are twice a year.
Matthew Jarvis:
Mm-hmm. Correct.
Reese Harper:
If the client reaches out, you’re gonna call them back and you’re gonna have an interaction.
Matthew Jarvis:
For sure.
Reese Harper:
And that might result in more tasks.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
But the client is ultimately dictating the… If they are happy and they’re not… Your way of knowing that they’re happy is every meeting that they show up, you’re getting that kind of feedback loop or they don’t call. Right?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah. And if things come up, when we’re running the value add, like if this beneficiary one, and we notice that their beneficiaries were wrong or it didn’t make sense with what’s in their will or whatever the case may be, we’d contact the client and say, “Listen, we need to take action based on this. During our next meeting, we’re gonna talk about this.”
Reese Harper:
Do you try to get your client services manager to interact with the client on that gap?
Matthew Jarvis:
Depends on what it is. If it was something like…
Reese Harper:
They’ll notify you if it’s like something that’s sensitive?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, or if it’s something that requires a plan or somebody’s license. If they notice like, hey, Fidelity only has three of your four beneficiaries listed, I’ll help you get that updated. If they say, “Wait a second, you told me that your… ” Whatever complicated thing, that then goes on my list for the next meeting.
Reese Harper:
That’s awesome. And so every 3 months at the quarters, there’s gonna be some trigger item.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
The client’s either gonna feel like if there is no action to take, you probably still want them to feel that you did the review to understand that there was no action that needed to be taken, right?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s… My buddy Micah calls that the dishwasher rule. And it’s a bit crude, but the thing goes, if you do the dishes at your house and your wife doesn’t notice, does it still count? Another way to say this is like if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a noise? If I do anything for a client, I want them to know that I did it. So if I’m looking at their accounts to see if we should do Roth conversions and the answer is no, I still want them to know that I looked and that the answer was no.
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Reese Harper:
I think that sometimes we’re insecure.
Matthew Jarvis:
You’re totally right. I am.
Reese Harper:
Yeah, about… Are we adding value? Are they happy? Are my clients okay? So how do you get an answer to that question in your own mind, like my clients are okay, they’re happy, I’m adding value. Is that through this… If you didn’t do these quarterly value-adds, do you think you would quite have the pulse that you have?
Matthew Jarvis:
I wouldn’t have the pulse and I would also be worried that things are falling through the crack. If I’m not looking… And again, I’m gonna keep using beneficiaries. If we’re being honest, how often do you go back and look at your client’s beneficiaries? Probably not often, but when it circles up every other year on my value-add cycle, I’m looking at every single client’s beneficiary all at once.
Reese Harper:
So let’s talk about just some… Would you mind sharing some other examples of value-add cycles so that I can follow up with a few more questions? So we got beneficiary account review and analysis.
Matthew Jarvis:
So we’ve done recently beneficiaries, we’ve done estate documents like who’s your Attorney-in-fact, who if you can’t make medical decisions, who’s gonna make that?
Reese Harper:
Is that a different one?
Matthew Jarvis:
That is a different one. Yeah.
Reese Harper:
So we’re not just doing a state, it’s like we’re gonna break that down to more granular.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, like who has permission to make decisions on your behalf if you can’t? And the client hasn’t thought about that in 10 years. We’ve done a long-term care one. Like, here’s the most three most common long-term care scenarios, how would they play out for your net worth? Tax planning, Roth conversions, Guardrails we do every year, required distributions for clients that are subject to that. I’m trying to think of some other ones we’ve done.
Reese Harper:
You don’t have an overly rigid requirement then for your value-add, you’re kind of looking at these… You do have some that you’re obviously gonna wanna repeat like you’re gonna repeat beneficiary review at least once every two years.
Matthew Jarvis:
Two to three years, yeah.
Reese Harper:
But it sounds like you’re actually still actively trying to discover for your clientele what’s the next value-add that we might use next quarter, right?
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah, I’m always trying to think ahead. What’s another one we could do?
Reese Harper:
That we haven’t done in a while for them.
Matthew Jarvis:
Or that we haven’t done at all. And my requirement for the value-add is that it has to have specific actionable advice to the client. So if it’s just market commentary, that’s not a value add, that’s just noise.
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
If it’s saying, “Hey, you should talk about estate planning.” That’s not noise. If it says, “Hey listen, if something happens to you, here’s who’s gonna make your decisions. Is that who you want to make decisions?” Now it gives the client something to think about that’s in their terms.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. So let’s jump over to what’s on your mind around advisors in the industry.
Matthew Jarvis:
Sure.
Reese Harper:
I would imagine that you are pretty… Like in my interaction with you, we’ve only met twice. I think you’ve got a very clear path that has worked for you.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
Right? I don’t feel like you’re ever arrogant about it, but you are assertive about what’s worked for you. And it seems like you see a lot of advisors like overcomplicating this that’s the sense I’m getting from listening to you. There are a lot of people are just overcomplicating this, that doesn’t have to be as complicated and you can make more money than you usually do.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
That’s that what I’m… I’m like speaking to something you actually have thought or am I just…
Matthew Jarvis:
Oh, 100%. When I do the podcast with Micah, when I wrote my book, it was all about, I wish someone would have told me this if I could have saved those seven, eight years of just terrible suffering in the industry, if somebody would have told me these things, and maybe that sounds like cliche, but it really is for me. Why did you write the book? I wish that somebody would have given me this book at the beginning of my career, ’cause we make it too complicated, and we all have terrible head trash, you mentioned expressing it assertive.
Matthew Jarvis:
I have to do it assertively so that I can believe it myself. If I’m in here like, “Well, Reese, I kinda charge 1.5%.” Like I’m gonna start… So we just did a fee increase this is an interesting example, clients for a million to two million, we moved their fee from 1% to 1.5%, 50% increase on fees. There’s 40 clients that got this fee increase. And when we mailed the letter, I physically mailed the letter to each person. Everyone I signed, I thought to myself, “It’s been fun working with that client, they’re surely gonna quit.” All 40 of them, that’s what I thought. They’re surely gonna quit.
Matthew Jarvis:
All, but two, agreed right away. The two were kinda on the fence, they said, “Hey listen, we decided to go another way.” That’s fine. You can do the math on that. But in my mind, I’m thinking, “I’ve just lost.” In fact, not only are all 40 gonna say no, they’re gonna tell my other clients who are gonna think I’m greedy, they’re gonna all fire me, my wife’s gonna leave me, my kids are gonna hate me, I’m gonna be like on an overpass, will plan for food. That’s where my mind goes at this point in my life.
Reese Harper:
So if the… I’m having this conversation actively with advisors, and so these aren’t my thoughts, these are…
Matthew Jarvis:
Sure.
Reese Harper:
Thoughts that I’m gonna reflect back to you from… We’ll say a younger generation of advisors.
Matthew Jarvis:
Sure.
Reese Harper:
Who’s very skeptical of…
Matthew Jarvis:
Ain’t I the young generation of advisors?
Reese Harper:
You and me are the old guys now.
Matthew Jarvis:
Dang it. You’re right.
Reese Harper:
So how is what you do worth what you get paid, right?
Matthew Jarvis:
Sure.
Reese Harper:
Aren’t you overpaid? Right?
Matthew Jarvis:
: Sure. Sure.
Reese Harper:
How do you respond back to that, you know…
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, I’ve actually given this presentation at a lot of events. I think two things come to mind, one is that assuming that you’re listening to this in a free market economy, the United States, North America, wherever you’re listening from, clients are working with you voluntarily. And assuming that you’re being transparent with your fees, your clients know how much they’re paying you, and they know that other people offer it for less. Like Schwab’s now offering financial planning “for free.” So the clients know that, so it’s a voluntary decision. So if my clients think they’re over paying me and they see my fee as a line item, then they would leave. They’re smart people, right? So that’s kind of fun number one. Thought number two is, where are you benchmarking? Why are we benchmarking off 1%, why don’t we benchmark off point 0.3. That’s what Vanguard charges. Right now, you and I are the downtown Sheraton, this hotel charges more than the Motel 6, but they won’t price match the Motel 6. It’s a different level of service. For some people, the Motel 6 is a perfect level of service and a perfect fee, for some people, the Sheraton is a perfect level of service, perfect level fee. That’s a long answer, sorry.
Reese Harper:
Well, and do you think that… What’s your feeling then about fixing your fees at 50k. Like, is there a place where you’d say, “I’d consider doing that for some clients,” or is it like “No, I don’t like the idea of associating the fee with a cap or a fixed amount.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, so that’s an interesting question. I believe that the AUM model is the least bad option. I do not think it’s a good option. I think it’s riddled with problems and conflicts and everything else, the thing is, it works like it works, right? And you can say, “Well, it should be hourly, it should be fixed.” It should be whatever. Listen, if there’s a fee schedule or a fee method that you have conviction about it, and you can sit across from a client, Reese and say, “Hey, listen our fee 50 grand a year?” Perfect, and if you say, “Our fee is 1% of your 5 million and it ads up to 50 grand,” perfect. I don’t think there’s a morally superior fee schedule as long as you’re transparent. I think.
Reese Harper:
This morning, Michael Kitces, did a presentation here at the XYPN Conference, and one of his slides was advisory efficiency, ratios of revenue per advisor. And I don’t know about you, but when I looked at those stats, I was doing my own firm math ’cause I haven’t done that for a while, and we’re a little bit bigger than we used to be, we have… I think we’re north of 20 full-time…
Matthew Jarvis:
Wow.
Reese Harper:
Employees, and so I was thinking like, where are my ratios and I was like, “Mine… We’re a lot higher than what they were showing on the screen.” And I was like, “I’m I doing the math wrong here?” Okay, and I went to talk to Michael about it after behind. And I was just like, “Are you… ” And I asked him a few clarifying questions, and what I can see very quickly is that this particular audience, probably some of which are listening to this podcast…
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, hope so.
Reese Harper:
They tend to not scale their firms as large, they tend to be much smaller.
Matthew Jarvis:
Sure.
Reese Harper:
And when I look at wirehouse ratios of efficiency, just to throw out a stat, one of the stats that we saw this morning, it was 100 and… It’s 100 and something thousand. Between 100,000 and 150,000 of revenue per full-time employee was like the average XYPN independent, which honestly, this group is probably the most altruistic.
Matthew Jarvis:
A 100%
Reese Harper:
The most fiduciary oriented.
Matthew Jarvis:
The most planning oriented.
Reese Harper:
This is more planning oriented. They’re doing the by far the best work on in aggregate of a community, even though especially for the X, Y, Z customer, the next gen of customers, but the efficiencies compared to wirehouse efficiencies. I think right now, if I look at the Cerulean Associates data that my head of product sent me the other day, we’re talking like, I think it was 10X more efficiency revenue per employee at wirehouse firms than probably seeing right now in this community, and that’s because partially because of this dynamic we’re talking about. I don’t know what to make yet of the fact that some people are willing to work for $200 an hour, and some people are unwilling to work for less than 5000.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, yeah.
Reese Harper:
But that’s how much opportunity is still in the advisory space, and I actually don’t see it shrinking, I don’t actually see fee compression happening for some of the best of the best advisors out there. At some point, the person that actually is worth… Let’s say that someone… Are CEOs of public companies worth a million dollars an hour? No, maybe, I don’t know. I can show you some examples where their work output for their board seat and the amount of stock options they’ve given and the salary they’re getting is generating them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour. I can show you NBA basketball players that are generating like six figures for every hour that they work.
Matthew Jarvis:
So true.
Reese Harper:
I don’t think it’s fair to say that between the spectrum of 200 and a million, that there isn’t a world where deeply qualified financial advice, fiduciary advice with good psychological background, good communication skills, a great service, great technology couldn’t be worth five, six, seven 10,000, 4,000. Call it a 1000 an hour. Of course, that’s possible. If there are people in the world that are worth hundreds of thousands an hour, and there are people worth 100 bucks an hour, I think you’re gonna find that not only are… The point you made where the customer sees a price and they’re like, “I’ll pick the higher price because higher price generally means better.”
Matthew Jarvis:
Better value, yeah.
Reese Harper:
But the person that is on the other side of that transaction who’s worth $5000.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yes.
Reese Harper:
Is probably a more competent person, just naturally, because they’re gravitating to the place where they can be compensated for their competencies, when you’re… You’re gonna go places where you can get paid to be worth what you’re worth. And if the market you’re in devalues you, then guess what you’ll do, you’ll change industries, you’ll just go somewhere else. They’ll sell you out the AUM model that unlocks value creation in a way that’s low friction for the customer, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and I just feel like sometimes we get caught up in beating up the people that are generating a high amount of revenue per hour, you probably get hit with this sometimes I would imagine.
Matthew Jarvis:
For sure, for sure. And we also we’ve been talking about the fee side, but we wanna talk about the value side. So interesting, I met with a client during surge last week, two weeks ago. And they were one of the people that were getting the fee increase. And so this client, they’ve been clients for a long time, they’re a little over a million dollars, their fee was going from one to one and a half, as they note it’s a 50% increase in fee, client says… She says, “Matthew, I’m really upset about this fee increase, but you’re worth every dollar. I just want you know I’m upset about it, but you’re worth every dollar I’m signing, I’m just… You’re worth every dollar.” So we kinda laugh about it a little bit, and she says, “Matthew, do you know that I’m friends with your wife on Facebook?” I don’t know, I don’t do social media, I apparently… So she said, “So I see how much you travel, and I see what your lifestyle is like,” and I said, “Okay,” and she said, “I wish you would travel less and be in the office more, it feels wrong to me that you’re out of the office so much.” She’s hitting all of my points, so I said, “Miss client, is there any time that we’re not available for you to deliver value?” She says, “Never.”
Matthew Jarvis:
I said, “Do you ever feel like you’re not getting value worth our fee?” she says “Never. You’re always there, you’re always worth the fee.” She says, “Just in my mind, it bothers me that you’re out of the office, but everything gets done.” So she just wanted to air that, but I think as advisors, we have head trash around that like, I’m getting paid too much. I’m not working enough, therefore, I must not be a good advisor. And that’s for the client to decide, if the client decides you’re not being in the office enough or you’re not delivering enough value, they’re gonna make that decision. Don’t make it for ’em.
Reese Harper:
So talk about the book here to wrap up, like why write Delivering Massive Value since we’ve been talking about this.
Matthew Jarvis:
Like I mentioned, it’s a book back to myself. It’s all the lessons I wish I would have learned that nobody else… That I had to just learn a hard way and I had to piece together and I had to figure out. Like a quick example on this fee one. Any time, I meet with a prospect or any time I’m talking fees with clients, I say, “Listen, every calendar quarter we’re gonna deduct our fee from your account, and you’re gonna see the number, Reese, and I’m gonna see the number. And we’re both gonna look at it and make sure that the value that I deliver, my team delivers is worth more than the fee. And if you think it is, then we’ll go another calendar quarter. But Reese, if you ever think it’s not worth the fee, like we’re not bringing enough value, then we need to have a heart to heart, or we need to part ways as friends. And by the way, if we decide to part ways as a gesture of good faith, I will do whatever I can to make the transfer easy, and I’ll refund my last quarter’s fee. Reese, is that okay with you?” They always say yes, because I’ve made it so easy.
Matthew Jarvis:
I’m like, “Listen look at it makes sense or it doesn’t.” So that’s one of the lessons that’s in the book, there’s a bunch of other ones, things that I figured out the most painfully hard way, that as I meet advisors, share this comments are like, “Wow, that’s awesome. I now use that script with my clients and it’s great and I feel so much better about the planning… ” That’s what I did it for.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. And if you could say who you think the… Well, if you were to summarize just kind of the main message of what you’re trying to get across in the book is what?
Matthew Jarvis:
Be intentional.
Reese Harper:
Okay.
Matthew Jarvis:
Don’t do things a certain way because that’s how everybody else does it, or that’s how you think it’s supposed to be done, like fees. Well, I need to charge 1%. Why? That’s what everybody else charges. Well, one, I’m not sure that’s true, but even if it was, who cares? I need to check my emails every day. Why? I need my clients to have my cell phone number, why? I’m not saying that’s the wrong answer, let’s just make sure we’re really intentional about it. I need to meet with clients every single week, why? Why not group them all together? Just question everything.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. And I think different advisors are gonna build their business differently.
Matthew Jarvis:
I hope so.
Reese Harper:
It fits their personality and it fits their skill set. I think there’s definitely a lot of room between where you’re at, which is, I would describe as a very efficient, very intentional… A business that supports your life.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yes.
Reese Harper:
More than a business that’s sacrificing all things for the client.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah.
Reese Harper:
You’re sacrificing for the client trying to find a fair transaction here, but I’m feeling…
Matthew Jarvis:
I have very strict guidelines, and it’s no different than going to the Ritz-Carlton. The Ritz-Carlton, we would say, that’s the top tier white-glove service. If they don’t have rooms available they’re not going to give me a room.
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Matthew Jarvis:
Even no matter how much I’m willing to pay. If a client wants to talk to me on a Saturday, or let’s say it was a Friday, that’s a more relevant example, I am never available to talk to clients on Fridays. Never, ever, ever, ever, no matter what. If your mom died that day, you can talk to me on Monday. No one talks to me on Fridays. But also, for people that say, “Well, that’s pretty extreme,” well, you don’t take client phone calls at 2 o’clock in the morning. You already have boundaries in your life. Same with delegation, I can’t delegate this. You already delegate everything in your life, you’re not making your own clothes. Let’s just delegate your email as well.
Reese Harper:
Oh, that’s great, man. Well, it’s been great hearing your thoughts. I’m going to let you wrap up with the last word. What do you want to leave advisors with today about how they can get in touch with you, and can learn from? Then maybe a parting thought as well.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, you can find at theperfectria.com. That’s my podcast that I co-host with Micah Shilanski, my dear friend. Check out the book Delivering Massive Value, it’s on Amazon. Parting thought, be intentional. Be intentional. Why are you checking your email? Why are you doing these things? I guess my other one would be just understand that we all have head trash. I was at a conference, I’ll end with this, some time ago. An advisor says to me, in front of the groups, he says, “Matthew, I know that you have no head trash left, but can you still recommend a coach for the rest of us?” I said, “I got to stop you right there. I still have all the same head trash, mine’s just… There’s just different dollar amount attached to mine.” I still worry, like I said, that fee increase, our clients gonna leave. Head trash, we all have it. It’s like we’re all insecure from high school still. What you’re suffering from, what you’re dealing with, I dealt with, I’m still dealing with, you’re not alone there. So, find a community, find XYPN. Find whatever community you need, where you can say, “Yeah, this is a really hard industry to be at, and here’s what the next level looks like.”
Reese Harper:
Nice. Well, thanks so much, Matthew, there’s a lot of fun getting a chance to meet you in a little bit more of a deep dive. I’m sure we’ll have many great conversations to come and just look forward to happen again.
Matthew Jarvis:
Yeah, Reese, thanks for having me. A lot of fun, buddy.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Reese Harper:
You can either live in that place of being a therapeutic experienced industry expert, or you can live in the place of like, “I have exclusive access to products that you can’t get anywhere else but through me. I work at large, you name it, broker-dealer. Or I work exclusively as a career agent inside of XYZ insurance company. You can’t get these products without me.” At some point guys, that argument’s going to die. You have to live and die on the fact that you’re just a really great advisor and a really great human that can interpret people, listen to them, give them feedback, coach them, help them make tough decisions, and they’re hiring you precisely for that.
Abby Morton:
You can learn more about the elements financial planning system at getelements.com/meet and schedule a time to speak with one of our friendly financial planning experts. Elementality’s, executive creators are Reese Harper and Matt Glazer. Elementality is produced by Abby Morton and directed by Jordan Haynes. Have a good one.