Jordan welcomes Abby Morton to the program to talk about how to sell an employee financial wellness program to employers. In this episode you’ll learn the data behind the opportunity for employer-sponsored financial wellness programs as well as…
- What motivates employers to purchase a financial wellness service
- What motivates employees to engage with a wellness program
- And what motivates advisors to build this service in the first place
Transcript
Jordan Haines: Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of Element Mentality. My name is Jordan Haynes, financial vital specialist here at Elements and your host for today’s show. Today I asked Abby Morton, our very own Abby Morton here at Elements to join me in the show, and I wanted to talk to her about how to sell an employee financial wellness program to employers.
We’re gonna talk about [00:01:00] a lot of things. What we will not talk about is the actual program itself. There’s a webinar that we’re, we’ll be hosting on June 10th that you can sign up. I will put that in the comments or the description in the episode. You’re welcome to sign up for it there. And in that one, we’ll have Reese Harper and Jeff Morgan from our team talk about building and how to build an employee or an employer sponsored financial wellness program.
But in today’s episode, I talk specifically about what motivates employers, what problem are we solving for employers when we offer a program like this? We also talk about what motivates employees to engage with the program to begin with, and then the end of the conversation. We talk a lot about what motivates advisors to build the surface in the first place.
We teased this a little bit two weeks ago in my episode on how to build a membership program, but in this one, we talk a lot about what is motivating elements to build something like this. And I think it’ll be really interesting. This is a longer conversation, but all of it is super good and really interesting and I’d love to get your take [00:02:00] on it.
So bear with us here. I think you’ll love this episode. But with that, let’s just get onto our episode with me and Abby.
We don’t talk enough. Do you remember, I think a few months ago when the last time we recorded this was like January, wasn’t it like January? Is that the last time we had an actual episode?
Abby Morton: been a minute. It’s definitely been a minute.
Jordan Haines: I don’t know what it is about Spring, but I feel like last month is always January, up until about June. Like I’m always like, oh yeah, last month was January. I don’t know why spring. It’s always been that way for me, so I’m always like, yeah, I, I just recorded with Abby. We just did an episode and no, that was like four months ago.
So here we are. Um. We have some fun things we wanna talk about. Uh, you mentioned to me before this that there is a great webinar happening and we’re gonna talk kind of like a teaser to what that webinar’s gonna be. So why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about this webinar that’s coming up and what it’s gonna be about?
Yeah,
Abby Morton: maybe, maybe even to set the webinar up a little bit, i, I, I think Jordan and I in the last couple episodes have alluded and talked about how we at [00:03:00] Elements has have started selling an employer wellness program, financial employer wellness program to employers to offer, you know, a benefit to their employees.
And we now have 11 programs up and running. We are. You know, nine months in, I can’t say that we’ve been doing it for years and years, so let’s be honest, we’re nine months into at least the initial programs and they’ve been going really well. And, uh, that’s coming up a lot in of, in our sales conversations of advisors wanting to buy elements and they’re interested in learning how do actually do this.
So I, I’m getting more and more questions from advisors saying, I love this idea, Abby, but how do I actually do that? How do I sell? In a program, how do I find people? Who do I look for? What kinds of conversations do I have? You know, I get certain objections that come up when I have these conversations.
How do I overcome those objections? And so it was actually asked by a customer to put a webinar together and I thought it was such a great idea. So, uh, we are going to [00:04:00] do a webinar on June 10th. Uh, at noon mountain time. So Reese Harper, our CEO, and Jeff Morgan, our CRO, are going to come on and they are going to talk with myself all about how we have actually sold these programs, what we’ve done, how we overcome objections.
But I thought this episode today would be a little bit of a teaser of the webinar and what they’re gonna learn. I’m gonna share more of my thoughts and my feelings about how to sell a program. But the why behind it, what’s resonating with employers, things like that. So that’s, that’s kind of the purpose of the webinar.
And so we invite you all to come watch for those emails. Uh, they’re going out to all of our customers. Um, if you are not a customer and you want email us at podcast at, no,
Jordan Haines: that’s right. podcast@getelements.com,
Abby Morton: okay,
Jordan Haines: that’s where, or I think there’s, it could be both. Honestly, just send something@getelements.com. It’ll reach us here eventually. So
Abby Morton: support admin. I don’t know.
Jordan Haines: dunno, [00:05:00] June 10th.
June 10th. Okay. Love it. Everyone come. I think it’ll be great. So
Abby Morton: Well, and it’ll be a different take. ’cause today it’s me and you. Right. And but on at the webinar we have Reese and Jeff, so that’ll be
Jordan Haines: Yeah. So I think they’ll probably get into a lot more details of how to actually do things like more tactical, more like nitty gritty.
I, I wanna ask a couple questions. ’cause in the last few weeks, actually a few months, um, there’s been a theme across, uh, conversations I’ve had with financial advisors and on the show, and we’ve talked about this thing that I’ve, uh, prototypes. Right. Creating prototypes, essentially. Um, a prototype being something that you are testing and trying.
Um, and I’ve, I’ve shared the example of James Dyson, the guy who created the vacuums, and he created like a thousand prototypes before he ever created something that he sold and that prototype he scrapped every time. Right. It didn’t fully work. It didn’t solve the problem that he was hoping. And finally he had one.
And so what I, what I gather from this is over the last nine months or so with these 11 employers that you’ve been working with, you’ve probably tested [00:06:00] and tried. Quite a few things. Um, what, what would you feel like, yeah, yeah. Abby, as you’ve talked to employers, what is the main reason people are interested in this?
Yeah. Um,
Abby Morton: Um, well that’s a great segue into some research actually. I wanted to share, so let’s like go to the research because I think just what Abby thinks off the top of her head is not as valuable as what the research is actually showing. So when we decided to start these programs, we went out and we tried to figure out who are the competitors in this space, what are they doing, what are they selling?
You know, how much are they selling it for? But what does the research show that people are wanting, right? Does? Is there any demand here? Do people even want,
Jordan Haines: you
Abby Morton: you know, financial education offered through their employers? So. Uh, we have, we’ve done a ton of research, so I’d highly recommend advisors who are interested in going this direction.
Go use ai, use perplexity to do some analysis, find your own research, but some, some, uh, sources [00:07:00] I’m going to share. Uh, bank of America in 2023 has a workplace benefits report. Um, and then there’s also a smart dollar, so that’s from Dave Ramsey, smart Dollar 2023 Wellness Survey. So the stats that I’m gonna share with you are from basically those two reports.
And, uh, what those reports have said is that two out of five employers currently offer a financial wellness program today. So that was actually a lot higher. I kind of thought that we elements were on. The cutting edge or, or of the first group of people who were going to do something like this. And we’re actually not like, I mean, Dave Ramsey’s been actually doing this for a while.
Um, there’s. Origin is doing them. I, I, there’s, there’s several. I mean, we put a spreadsheet together. There was 15 different, you know, companies and organization, organizations providing this. So, on the one hand, I actually think that’s great. I think it’s great. That is an offering that’s being, uh, presented today and that it’s not something [00:08:00] new that you have a hard time explaining and justifying its value to because it’s out in the marketplace and people are actually buying it.
So I think that helps. Other employers being like, oh, maybe I should buy this. I’ve talked to my other friend and he is doing this, so maybe I should look at it too. So two out of five employers offer it. And the other interesting thing is that 73% of employees wish their employer offered more resources to help them manage their finances.
That’s a high percentage, 73% of employees, and I feel like it seems so resonant. I mean, employers provide a 401k or some other type of retirement benefit, but outside of that retirement benefit, they don’t really help you with much else. But how great would it be if an employer did provide some financial coaching or financial education, financial literacy, that it, it seems a very easy.
Uh, sell to the employee to, for the employer, just to provide that as a benefit. It’s like a no brainer. Almost
Jordan Haines: My, when you were telling me that [00:09:00] first stat, so two out of five employers today offer some sort of an employee financial wellness program. Is that right? You that right. So what’s been interesting to me the last few months is I’ve been listening to dentists, so I don’t know, I probably talked to a hundred, 150 dentists come in.
Um. And when I ask them, have you ever worked with a financial person? I don’t say financial advisor, just like someone in finance before. They say, well, I have a financial. Person at my work, a lot of times it’s with like someone who’s a W2 employee that they work for an employer or something like that.
And I’ll say, well, what does that person do for you? And they say, I have no idea. And I say, well, um,
Abby Morton: Don’t you love that? I have no
Jordan Haines: I have no idea. They, and they’ll usually say something like, um, you know, they help me set up my 401k and that’s it. What’s interesting though to me, that here, here’s my, like, the reason I share that is.
When I say like, have you worked with a financial advisor before? Or some variation of that, they always say yes. That their, their position, their perception is that the 401k guy, or the gal is my financial [00:10:00] advisor.
Abby Morton: Yep.
Jordan Haines: And so like we’re coming and talking to them as this new. Concept, like entirely foreign to them.
This idea that they could hire someone outside of their work or I think in your situation, work with someone that actually is offering financial wellness. So my, my big question that I had is like, how many of those, like two out of five, um, wellness programs are actually delivering results, are actually like interesting and relevant to clients?
I don’t know. I don’t,
Abby Morton: a good question. No, I love that. I think that’s fair. I agree with you that when I talk to the kind of seminars I’ve done with employees and I say, raise your hand if you have a financial advisor. I think most people do raise their hand, and when I think of the context of an advisor, I think of our customers, right?
Actually, RIAs, right. Looking a holistic picture. But when you really get down and you ask them, it’s like, oh, my friend that sold me insurance one time, right? Or the 401k it guy at my employer. It’s so funny, [00:11:00] Jordan, that everybody wants to say yes, but it’s what are they really doing for you? And they always say, well, I don’t really know, or They did this one thing for me one time.
So I’ve always wondered why they’ve anchored to that. Um, as far as the, um, uh, the financial wellness programs being offered.
Jordan Haines: I
Abby Morton: I for sure. There’s a huge wide variety, right, of programs being offered and looking at, at at least the list that we found of competitors in this space. I would argue that most of these are doing more than just a 401k or just selling insurance.
I would argue a lot of them are providing. A bigger picture, broader view, right? Like Dave Ramsey’s program. I mean, we could all, you can all look up his 10 step process online. You know, that’s kind of what he’s offering, which is a great program and is more comprehensive than just picking a 401k,
Jordan Haines: it’s, it’s just easier. I, I think you and I had this conversation, there’s something about, um. I remembered having this conversation months and months ago.
Uh, but when we talked about where, where does financial trust [00:12:00] lie with most normal, regular human beings, most normal, regular human beings don’t have a, like a dedicated financial advisor. And so most of their financial trust is going to be in the person paying their paycheck. And so I think it makes a lot of sense for someone like Dave Ramsey or a lot of these programs or elements money, um, to tether themselves in a sense, borrow the trust from the employer and say, Hey, how about we help these people with money as well?
I.
Abby Morton: No, I agree. I’ve been surprised in these conferences, or not conferences, sorry, these seminars that I’ve done with these employees and when I’ve gotten on to an actual coaching session, how easy it seems that that trust has already been established. You know, I remember as an advisor working really hard to establish that trust.
And trying to convert the prospect and helping them feel like I’m here for you and I’m not just gonna sell you a product. Uh, but in this, in this setting, it, it just feels so much easier for them to open up and to share really what’s on the top of their mind than I thought it would be. So it is true, like, oh, my employer, these guys, [00:13:00] I’m gonna trust them too.
Jordan Haines: Can I ask you a question? Um, about, I want to ask you a question about three different people. Uh, well, uh, parties, I don’t like that word. Parties.
When you talk about like different groups of people, we call ’em parties of people, whatever. Um, what is the motivation for employees? So I, I get it like two out of five offer wellness programs. 73% of employees want something. What’s the motivation to employers? Like why would, why would they wanna buy something like this?
No,
Abby Morton: no, it’s perfect. It’s, and I think that’s what I get, a lot of the pushback or the questions when I’ve heard advisors say, well, I try to sell it, but the employer was worried about. I think the biggest objection I get is why would I provide this as a benefit when I know only 10% of my employees are going to participate in it?
Right. I mean, I think, I think employers have to think about that from a 401k perspective as well. I mean, I think oftentimes 4 0 1 Ks don’t always get super high as enrollment as employers think that they would get. Right. So it’s kind of interesting, I [00:14:00] think in that sort of realm. I, I think that. Uh, there’s a couple more stats to share.
So from those same reports that I mentioned earlier, um, some stats that have helped employers understand why they’d buy this is 45% of employees say they’ve been distracted at work due to financial problems in the last year. So how unmotivated or unproductive are your employees being Because they’re financially stressed, they’re financially worried, you know, they have something going on in their personal lives.
That they don’t know how to deal with and they don’t know who, who to go to for help. And so then they spend time at work distracted and worried about this thing, and then they’re not being
Jordan Haines: Is that what, is that what distract my question there is what does distracted mean?
Is that just like time away from producing or like doing their job?
Abby Morton: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Jordan Haines: 45%.
Abby Morton: I mean, 45, I mean, so it’s not like above 50, right? But still, I mean, think half of your workforce, almost half of your workforce is [00:15:00] worried about something financially, and if you just provided an easy way for them to know like, Hey, I can just pick up the phone and call Abby and get my question answered and be a little less stressed about it, or get some guidance.
Some emotional support, you know, maybe that would help. Um, the other kind of interesting stat is that 37% have missed work due to a financial problem. So because finances are not in order or because they’re stressed or worried, they actually don’t even show up to work. And so that has been our big. Kind of selling point is that destruct distraction and stress caused by financial worry lead to lower productivity and burnout of your employees.
So if you could ensure that your employees would be less burnt out and that they’d be more productive on the job, is it worth the benefit If maybe only 10% take advantage of it? I would argue it
Jordan Haines: totally, yeah. What, um, you’ve probably been involved in a lot of these conversations with employers. Is this [00:16:00] something that you like when you describe, so in my experience, like when I’m selling advice to a dentist, um, there’s situations in which I explain what we have and they’re like, yes.
Like there’s, they’re like, this is what I needed. Like what you’re saying just resonates on a, on a really deep level. And, and other times it’s like, I wasn’t even looking for that. Right. Like what’s been your experience talking to employers about that? Like how many are like, yeah, this is, like, are there things that they’re experiencing that’s causing them to be like, to really resonate with this?
Abby Morton: Yeah, so some things that have definitely stuck out in our mind are the biggest thing is A CEO or CFO, right? Someone on the executive team is having conversations with their employees about their money. Either the employees asking for paychecks or bonuses earlier to help cover some financial. You know, uh, pain or financial worries that are coming for that employee, or they even go to them and say, I’m getting this bonus paid out.
Help me know what to do about it. What do [00:17:00] you recommend? And so not only does the employer have to pay out the paycheck to the employee, they then have to have an awkward conversation with the employee about how to manage that money. Or to like, give it to them in advance because they’re not gonna make ends meet, you know, until the next paycheck comes around.
And how awkward are those conversations for the employer? I mean, they don’t want to have those conversations. And so that’s been a huge, the, the people that we’ve sold to that are like, this is a no brainer. It’s the people that are having those conversations with their employees and they think, I don’t wanna do this anymore.
Now, I’m not saying every employer is like that. I don’t think every employer. Is that type of an employer that employees feel like they could even go approach their boss in that way. So I’m not saying that happens every single time, but that’s like a dead giveaway. If you can lead the conversation with a friend or a coworker or someone you know that owns a business and try to fill that out, that’s always an easy yes for them to say is like outsource that awkward conversation to us as a third [00:18:00] party and we can keep all parties happy, you know, being the objective person in the
Jordan Haines: Yeah. Are these usually smaller businesses that have that I, I would assume that it’s probably like, oh, really?
No. I
Abby Morton: I mean there’s, so we have sold someone as small as a 12 employer business, but our largest employer has about 3000 employees. We didn’t actually start the program with all 3000. We started with a smaller group of 250, but the the 3000 employer company, he, he was one of the ones that’s like, yeah, these conversations are awkward.
Um, we’ve had, we’ve had a couple other of the smaller employers say that same thing, but it was surprising to me that it came from our largest employer. We’ve brought on. Said that same conversation because you would think it’d be more like the den. I, I’m just thinking, I’m familiar with dentists. That’s, that’s who we talk to, Jordan, right?
Like dentists are, we call ’em like the papa Bears, right? They have their staff of 12 employees and that’s as big as they’re gonna grow and they’re like a family, right? It’s. It’s a little different where when you [00:19:00] think of a 3000 employee company, the Papa Bear there just, it’s just not happening in that size of an employer.
But he said the same things, so it’s kind of
Jordan Haines: Makes me speculate that the, the, so I often talk about symptoms and then like the core diagnosis, the symptom is like, I’m having conversations that are making me uncomfortable, right?
Like, like that’s super easy to diagnose. Say, okay, that’s a obviously happening. Why is that making you feel uncomfortable? Um, why are you looking outside for someone to just talk to? Is the problem to be solved? Like. I just need someone to listen to employees or give advice to them ’cause they don’t have an advisor.
Or if they do, that advisor doesn’t talk to them and I don’t know what I’m talking about or I don’t wanna have that conversation because I know money is personal and my situation’s very different than theirs. It’s hard for me to empathize. Like I think advisors listening to this can like recognize the situation that that probably puts a normal person who’s an engineer, who like doesn’t like, they might be, they might know enough about finances, but now they have to manage the emotional side of money.
With an employee that they don’t know. I think that’s really interesting. So the [00:20:00] job to be done or like the, the core problem to be solved might be, um, I need someone for my people to talk to. And that seems to resonate. I don’t, I’m not saying that that’s the case with everyone, but it seems like that’s seems to be the trend for the people that you’ve talked
Abby Morton: no, I agree and I think most advisors will resonate with the fact that. Financial planning isn’t always about. Uh, knowing how to invest the money or where to save the money. Sometimes it’s just about emotionally being heard, right. Emotionally feeling better. And so I think for those other employers that are like, why would I do this?
We, we pitch it in the sense of like an insurance policy, right? We are your insurance policy when. Your employees are worried and frustrated and they’re literally calling in sick because of financial issues. That we can be that person, that trusted source that they can talk to, to help them deal with those emotional struggles, uh, so that when they, so that they can be heard and seen and then come into work [00:21:00] feeling better, you know, about what they’re doing.
And so I think that we’ve also looked at it as. All, all of these programs, right, have kind of a year contract, right? So we’ve often thought at the year renewal date. We want the employer to talk to the employees, and we want the employees to say, please don’t take this benefit away from us, because we like having that peace of mind that we could go talk to somebody whenever we need it.
Maybe I, maybe I haven’t even talked to Abby yet, but knowing I could go talk to Abby and knowing that she’d be there and it’s easy to find her and it’s easy to schedule on her calendar. I like knowing that I have that right. So it’s like that insurance policy where it’s just makes it easy.
Jordan Haines: Yeah, this is super natural.
Lead in into another question I had. So I asked about motivations for employees or, or employers. Why would they want to do that? And I think we’ve talked a lot about that now, employers, I mean, you’re selling to employers. They’re paying money for a program, right? Um, you’re also selling to the employees.
They’re just not paying. They’re not paying with money. They’re paying with time and [00:22:00] energy and effort. And eng we, we’ll use the word engagement. What’s the motivation for employees to interact with this? It sounds like you’re, you’re using this, this, uh, percent, 10%. Where’s that 10% coming from? What’s been your experience with these 11 groups that you’ve done this for?
What is motivating employees to interact and engage with this? I
Abby Morton: I mean, I think it’s a number of different things. I am surprised that employers who are like that Papa Bear, who talk about the program, who are really interested in it, who ask their employees, have you had conversations with, you know, elements Money program? Uh, like our 12, our 12 employer business, we’ve had 11 of those 12
Jordan Haines: Wow.
Abby Morton: talk to us.
And I think a lot of it is because the employer is encouraging them to have those conversations. And when I’ve gotten on calls with them, that’s what they’ve said. Oh, you know, my boss told me to come schedule time with you, and I’m interested to just see what you have to say. So I think that is always. I love those employers.
’cause it just makes it easy, right? It’s [00:23:00] like I’m getting encouragement from inside the office, from someone to come talk to me and then when they show up, I think they’re often happy that they did. Like, I think everyone walks away just feeling better about their money, which it’s hard to think from any of our RIAs that we work with, any of our customers.
I have a hard time thinking that someone would leave a meeting with you, not feeling a little bit better
Jordan Haines: gotta get ’em there. Yeah.
Abby Morton: Right? But then there’s obviously other people who. Have a pressing need or are really trying to make a decision right now that they, that they’re motivated just intrinsically, right?
They have something pressing that they wanna talk to us about. And so those are obviously the other people who write. As soon as you open the program up, they schedule on your calendar right away. And they’re asking you those questions. So I think some are intrinsically motivated just by what’s going on in their personal life.
I think others are motivated by their employer encouraging them to reach out. And then I don’t know how, if I’m being honest, I don’t know how many people come from this third I. [00:24:00] Area. But as we send out content and as we’re nurturing people in these programs over time, I hope that something we send resonates with somebody that puts a question in their mind that causes them to reach out.
You know, that it’s something maybe they never thought about before, or they finally reach the point where they’re like, I should actually probably deal with this, and I’ve. I followed the content enough to feel like, okay, maybe now I can trust Abby. There’s always those employees who like have the instant trust ’cause they just are a trusting person.
But you’re always gonna have those skeptical employees who would never talk to you. But hopefully after six months, I. Of being nurtured. They finally feel like, okay, let’s go talk to these people. I like what they’ve had to say for six months. Like, it just takes time. So I can’t say we’ve had, I don’t know that I have like a specific story of that yet where someone says like, this content caused me to reach out to you.
Um, but I think that’s the hope is that that will happen.
Jordan Haines: Essentially what you’re looking for, um, in demand side sales 1 0 1, and the listeners [00:25:00] have heard me talk about that too much. But, um, he has the four stages of the buyer cycle. First thought, passive looking, active looking than making a decision in terms of like buying something. I think what you’re describing here is, um.
Nurturing people in a way that’s trying to help them identify what their first thought is, right? Like, we don’t know what the first thought is for the vast majority of people. And, and this is probably gonna feel very similar to just like normal, regular, you know, financial planning and advising, uh, content creation, things like that where you’re kind of just, maybe it’s more generic.
You’re trying different subjects and topics and seeing what resonates. Um, but the catalyst is gonna be different every time, and you’re just, you’re using the employer as a, as a space to nurture and have a little bit of borrowed trust and credibility to get in front of them. So let, let me summarize the, so you, you said three things.
So what, what motivates employees to engage with this? Um, I wrote two things down for the first two answers. The first was social pressure. I’m using that as like, it’s kind of a social job you’ve done where they’re, they’re, it’s like my employer is my [00:26:00] boss. You know, if it’s a Papa Bear or mama bear, um, I trust them.
And they’re pressuring me to do this. It’s positive pressure, right? Like, Hey, I think you should talk to this person. It’s, it’s coming about from a social, uh, place, whereas
Abby Morton: Yeah. I.
Jordan Haines: for it. I
Abby Morton: I would add too, with social pressure, I like that you said that because employees have said to me, well, now that I’ve met with you, I’m gonna go back and tell my friends at my company that I did talk to Abby and I did have a good conversation and this is how she helped me. And so then more people are going to come in.
So I think you’re getting social pressure from both angers, angers, angles. You’re getting the pressure from your coworkers, your, your, you know, um. The people that are equal with you. Why
Jordan Haines: words. Yeah, we got it. Uh.
Abby Morton: Uh, and their boss, right? They’re getting it from kind of both angles.
Jordan Haines: Yeah, so there’s, there’s, I think this is just like a good example of le like leveraging social pressure in a, in a good way, right? I think so often we hear social pressure and we’re like, bad. You know, peer pressure is bad. I’m like, no, I think it [00:27:00] can be good. And I think in this situation it is good, right?
Because the, the end state is they get to talk to someone about their money for sometimes the first time. The second one is that you mentioned is like an acute problem. Like something is right there. It’s pressing, they need to take care of it. That one’s more internal. It’s probably more emotionally or functionally motivated rather than socially, but that, that tends to be the other part of that group.
Which, which one do you feel like is most, is it mostly from social or is it good mix? I
Abby Morton: I think so far it’s been a good mix, if I’m being honest. I mean, maybe a tiny bit more, you know, intrinsically just they have that financial pain and. Financial concern themselves, but I’d be like 45% of them are then social pressure. Right? Like not much higher.
Jordan Haines: Yeah. How do you guys, random question, I wasn’t gonna ask this, but I’m really curious. How do you position yourself to the employees? Is it like, we are a financial advisor, we are a financial coach. We’re a, like, what does that look like? What are the words that you guys use?[00:28:00]
Abby Morton: Yeah, we’ve been calling ourselves financial coaches because we are not at elements in RIA, so we cannot talk investments. We cannot, shell sell insurance products, right? We are trying to stay in the coaching realm and I think that’s where this. Program really thrives is, I was actually at a seminar with an executive team, so everyone in that room was probably 45 years old or older, you know, making at least 200,000 right there.
They’re, they’re a more sophisticated, I would say, employee, uh, employer that we brought, or at least the employee base in the room, right. Was a more sophisticated buyer and they.
Jordan Haines: They
Abby Morton: they asked a lot of questions about how am I going to be different than like their standard advisor. It seemed like a lot of people in the room did have a person who was managing their investments, a, a standard advisor who they were working with, but yet they found a lot of, uh, joy in knowing that we could look at things holistically that we are gonna, that like we took a different approach, I guess, than their.
Their [00:29:00] actual advisor. So I think at least for those people, it was really helpful to know that like, I’m not gonna come in and be your investment advisor, and I’m not gonna try to manage your investments. I’m just going to be here to offer you good advice on what you should do about maybe topics that you haven’t actually talked to your advisor about before.
And that was really resonant for them.
Jordan Haines: Um, I shared a story, so in January I spoke at a dental conference that you’ve spoken at, I think a few times. Um, and, uh, there were 75 women in the room and I just like went through a few of the elements.
So I talked about total term, I talked about savings rate and debt rate and liquid term, and kind of like the foundational ones. And I talked about the importance of like orientation and kind of just knowing where they’re at. And I remember after I had, there were probably a dozen different people that said something along the lines of, I have a financial advisor.
I’ve never like actually understood how I’m doing. This is really interesting. Can we talk more, um, the reason I share that is when I hear your [00:30:00] story about like, working with this group. Um, I think the differentiator, right? Like the way that they’re positioning this in their minds looking at elements money or financial coach is maybe more holistic and maybe from the, the level of like, they’re not giving me prescriptive advice, but they’re letting me see how I’m doing in all of these different areas.
Is that, is that similar to your experience with that group?
Abby Morton: No, I think so. I think it’s, you know, this is financial education. This is just helping me know where I am big picture wise. And again, I think just because we need to stay very, uh, specific about the type of advice we’re giving and not get into. Trouble with the advice that we’re giving. We try to stay more in the coaching education, like we’re just gonna help, you know, they, they have to then go and do all the work to implement the plan.
They make the final decisions, right? We’re not making those decisions for them. We’re just trying to provide them the good education about their specific, unique. Financial situation. Um, ’cause I, I think [00:31:00] oftentimes too, it’s not always hard to know what to do, right? You can go online, use AI now and ask AI what to do, but it’s like actually doing it is the hard thing.
And so I think just us being that like person that’s holding their hand or helping them know like, yeah, you can do it. And like being that kind of encouraging, uh, support person I think is, is maybe how people look
Jordan Haines: man, I love this. This is kind of the gospel by Jordan A.
Little bit. So, uh, take it with a grain of salt. I. Over time, so we, a while ago, I went and reached out to. You know, the last year’s worth of new clients we have at dentist advisors and just ask them a question like what was, what was the first aha moment? You and I have talked about that. What was your first like, yes, this was very valuable to me and Al almost every single person.
It was like 95% of everyone I talked to. It’s like I just felt organized for the first time. Um, I knew where everything was at, not like, maybe a couple handful of people said like, they gave me advice on what to do. It was very uncommon for people [00:32:00] to say like, that was the first valuable interaction. Not that that’s not valuable, but here’s the gospel by Jordan.
I’m, I’m convinced more and more that people, clients, consumers really value just knowing where things are at and feeling organized. And I think something like a financial coaching program like this. I think the more you can emphasize that, the more relevant value it is to clients. I don’t know if that’s the truth across the board.
I know we’re, we’re still testing that, but I think that that’s something that we’ve found at elements is just showing people where things are at not necessarily being super prescriptive in the advice you’re giving. Um, that’s like 90% of the work.
Abby Morton: I love that Jordan, and I think, I think that’s actually a good learning lesson for me and something that I’ve maybe, uh, forgotten about a little bit is maybe a lot of the value we’re providing is just the organization bit. Helping everyone understand where their money is falling and how it is organized, and just that alone.
Like just that alone, like I always go [00:33:00] into, but then I helped them do X, but then they decided to do Y. Right. And maybe it doesn’t even always have to be that. It can just be like. Wow. I feel like good about knowing everything’s right here in the screen, and I understand it at some level that I’ve never understood it before, so I love that.
Thanks for sharing that. I, I, I’m remembering that’s kind of a big Jordan,
Jordan Haines: big Jor. Yeah. Gospel by
Abby Morton: Jordan,
Jordan Haines: Yeah. First, first,
Abby Morton: but it’s a good reminder. It definitely is.
Jordan Haines: Yeah. Can I ask one more question? Sorry. I have one more. Tell
Abby Morton: Only one more.
Jordan Haines: Last one. Okay. We’ve talked about motivation, um, by the employer. Why they, why would they wanna do this? We’ve talked about motivation from the employee.
What’s the motivation by the advisor? And in this case, we’re using elements. Why would I as the advisor, actually, I don’t wanna put elements, uh, here, I, you’ve talked to advisors wanting to do something similar. You’ve been in conversations with Reese and team, um, to launch this and pilot this, uh, program.
Why would advisors be motivated to do something like this? Yeah, [00:34:00] I think
Abby Morton: I think it’s a great question. I think that, if I’m being honest, I think that since elements inception, advisors have come to us thinking, oh, I can do a subscription model. I.
Jordan Haines: Mm-hmm.
Abby Morton: And I can get a bunch of people on. And I, and, and I think a lot of advisors have that desire to serve more people who don’t have assets or maybe even like the income level yet to be able to afford good financial advice.
And so advisors were coming left and right to be able to do that exact thing. And I think. Now that at least we elements have done it ourselves, and I feel like we’ve learned along the way. I think we learned. I think personally it’s a little easier to go to the employer rather than to the actual end consumer.
I think you’re going to get paid more and it’s going to be an easier sale sell for the employer than it is the end consumer. I’ve just seen too many advisors try going direct to consumer and it’s hard. I’m not saying you can’t do it. We have many advisors doing [00:35:00] it and they do it really well, but it’s, it’s not.
It’s not easy, like it’s not easy to just like start up a subscription model. So I think the reason why the advisor would do it is. They want a way to diversify their revenue stream. They maybe also have this altruistic motive of wanting to help more 20, 30, 40 year olds just understand more about their money, but they wanna get paid for doing that type of work, you know?
And so I think pairing elements with a program, but getting paid through the employer allows you to do that, right? You’re getting paid a decent amount to offer a program. Uh, we have more resources today. I think our product is better today to help you do that at scale than it probably was four years ago.
And so maybe that’s for another episode of like new features and enhancements that we’ve created to allow you to be able to scale a program. I’d love to come on and talk more about that as well. Um, so I think it’s just that it’s just like, it’s a way diverse revenue stream. It’s a way to serve more people in [00:36:00] a different way.
Uh, and ultimately I think. Those employees, you want to like upsell into wealth management that you might want to invest their money and do more and put them as a traditional client. What’s a great way to find all of those people at scale? I think it’s through an employer, like they have a job, they’re being paid, so it’s just another way to upsell into your own programs as well.
And so. I think that’s like the big motivating factor for advisors to do this. But if you have a great practice and things are going well and finding new clients is not your problem and you’re not interested in growing, that’s fine. Don’t do this. Right. This isn’t for everybody, and I don’t think there’s any shame about that.
I get a advisors a lot that are like, but I feel bad. Like, you’re telling me to do this, and I, I don’t wanna do that. That’s fine, then don’t do it. You know? It’s okay.
Jordan Haines: It just, it just require and. I’m gonna call this out right now ’cause people listening to this are probably like itching for more details. Like, what is this program? And I think, we’ll, like, that’s the teaser for the 10th and the webinar.
Um, and maybe we’ll talk about that more today. I mostly [00:37:00] wanted to focus on what’s the problem we’re solving for, for people. Um. What what’s been interesting to me though, and I, I talked about this in the podcast two weeks ago, or talked about the three main motivations that I’ve found, people wanting to create a membership, whether it’s them going direct to consumer or going through the employer, I think what you’re, you’re describing is direct to consumer is great.
Go through the employer, you’ll have a better chance of borrowed trust and a higher volume. And I, I, I think that’s fantastic, but
Abby Morton: And my like pay, like I just, I honestly think employers are more willing to pay. Right. You have to find that person who’s willing to pay, and I don’t think most end consumers are willing to pay as much as an employer
Jordan Haines: I think the difficulty that I’ve had with advisors over the years is the motivations that I’ve found.
I would add one more motivation to what you described. So altruism is a big part, right? Like, I want to help the people. I always wanted to help. And as a financial advisor in my traditional market, I can’t do that. And so this gives me an opportunity to do that. Um, the other one is you mentioned like a separate revenue stream.
I would say like a, a, a separate profit center, like a. A [00:38:00] defined standalone service that you are going to make money from as a financial advisor. And then I would say the third that we didn’t mention here is like a nurturing program. Something that, I mean, you know, your core bread and butter is financial, comprehensive financial advice.
It’s a premium service, and you want more of those people. And so you’re going to use a membership as a way to get that.
Abby Morton: Yep.
Jordan Haines: And I think it’s important to know that motivation because in my experience talking to advisors, um, these all like this program. Is different, very different from traditional financial advice, like the, the client journey, all of it.
Um, and the fact that over the last, and I, I haven’t been as involved as you have been, but I have been an outside observer and in conversations with y’all. What I found is just like the type of conversations, how you attract people, what you talk about, what motivates people to sign up for. This is very different than like a traditional one-on-one financial planning relationship with someone.
Abby Morton: Oh,
Jordan Haines: And so it’s not just like, it’s not just like, Hey, I’m gonna open this thing and it’s just gonna work. Right? Like, no, it’s gonna, it’s gonna take some time and there’s gonna be some different approaches that you take with this. And I think that that’s. [00:39:00] I’m hoping over the next couple weeks and in this webinar we’ll be able to understand and, and you guys will probably share, you know, here’s the things that we have found going direct to consumer or, or going through the advisor or not the advisor going through the employer.
Here are the things we know work because we’ve tested it, we’ve tried it, things like that. No,
Abby Morton: no, I totally agree. And I, this actually circles back to something you said earlier that I wanted to make a point about, about the prototypes and how sometimes you just have to try things. You might even have to try to do a couple of these programs for free. If I’m being honest, the first seven programs we did, we all, we did completely for free because we were just learning.
We were figuring out, we were, we knew we were gonna mess up and then feel bad, but then we didn’t have to feel as bad because the employer’s not paying us any money. They’re allowing us to learn along the way, and now we’re actually having some of those employers come back to us and say. Hey, we never paid you.
We want to start paying you. This program is working. And so we feel like if you do a good job, uh, not if, [00:40:00] when you do a good job, right, when the employees love the program, those employers that didn’t initially pay you and let you learn and like be their Guinea pig, uh, they’re gonna come back and say, we wanna keep doing the program and we wanna pay you.
And then I think you could probably even charge more because then you figured out your value, you figured out your niche. And so I would actually highly encourage. Uh, everyone to go and do three to five of these programs with just friends or employers that, you know, test it out because Jordan, I’ve been surprised at how different from me giving the advice to these employees, I’ve just even had to switch my mindset about like, what is the goal and what is the objective of this 30 minute meeting?
You know, I don’t have. Three hours over the course of a whole year with a person. I have 30 minutes one time to try to make an impact. And so how is that conversation different? It’s definitely a different conversation, and so we’re figuring that out and it’s, it’s, it’s nice. So I, I definitely think to go try it out and to not [00:41:00] feel bad for a couple times to not get paid to do it while you’re figuring it
Jordan Haines: That’s a hard, it’s, I don’t think, I don’t, I think this is just human nature. I don’t think we’re naturally inclined to test and break things.
Like last week I talked about being intentionally chaotic, intentionally inconsistent. That if you try to scale early on, like imagine if nine months ago when you first started doing this, you said this is it. And we’re very rigid and we’re just gonna go to market, and we’re gonna say, this is the thing that we have to offer.
And you did that for all 11. Well, you would’ve just learned this didn’t work. Well, you weren’t, I mean, what you did do instead is you iterated and you tested and you tried different things and you got more repetition. So then now, nine months later, 11 programs in, you can say, Hey, we’re still, I mean, you’re still testing and trying
Abby Morton: We’re still
Jordan Haines: Yeah. You’re still curious. But here’s what we’ve learned and, and here’s the last thing I’ll say on this. Um. The reason I think this matters to bring up is, I think one of the reasons, and you can speak to this a little bit more, I, I know a lot of people are listening to this and be like, well, why is Elements doing this, right?
Like, you’re the tech [00:42:00] company for financial advisors. Why, why did you decide to do this? And I think what we found over the last two or three years, and I, I can attest to this. Yeah, talking to financial advisors, people are interested in this, consumers are interested in this, employers are interested in this, advisors are interested in this.
I think what we found is an unwillingness to actual prototype and test and be hands-on and really dedicate the time and resources to this. And we decided, hey, let’s do this for advisors. Let’s test this out. Let’s figure out what works so that we can share best practices. Well, and
Abby Morton: and I think too, there’s a fair amount of, um, I, I did learn, I think Jordan and I were always telling people like, just go start a subscription model. It’ll be easy. Just do it. You know? And now actually having done it, I was like,
Jordan Haines: that’s hard.
Abby Morton: yeah, maybe that wasn’t the best advice. It’s a lot harder than I think.
Than I thought it was. Right. And at Elements, at least, we have a team, we have a group of people who can help us figure it out, like the easiest way. And so I feel like we’ve used our resources of our people, all of the elements team, right? There’s more than one of us, right? But a [00:43:00] lot of advisors were telling to do this.
They’re a solo shop advisor. Maybe they have an admin, right? And so it was hard for them to pick up something brand new, but still run their existing business. So first of all, I think, I apologize, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve learned I’m gonna learn more.
Jordan Haines: I’ve
Abby Morton: I’ve learned more, and I, I’m going to resolve to be better now that I know more.
And, um, but I think the benefit is like we took our scale of our team. And figure it out. And now we’re gonna share those kind of secrets with you. Nothing that we’re doing, we’re gatekeeping. If you’re an elements customer, we’re going to share those secret, that secret sauce with you. Because honestly, there’s millions and millions of employers out there.
There’s enough employers to go around for all of us, right? Um, and so we’re happy to share, and I think. I hope that this benefits the end advisor wanting to use elements to do exactly this by learning from our mistakes and, and hearing what we’re [00:44:00] doing and then implementing it. But you definitely have to step into the dark and try something you’ve never done before and it’s scary.
I. But I highly encourage you, like if you go in with that mind frame of, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m just gonna take the next step forward and try the next thing that I think would work. Like, I think it will benefit you more than you realize and you’ll learn more and then the next time will get easier and it’ll get easier and easier and, and when you have these coaching conversations with people you know, you can never talk to before.
Like, that’s been so valuable for me. I’m like, this is why we do this. Like, I just helped, I’ve probably had 30 conversations, maybe 40 over the nine months. I’m like, I’ve talked to 40 people who would’ve never talked to anyone, like with my caliber of financial expertise. And like, that is so rewarding to me.
So I just, I think that’s, that’s the why, like that’s the why behind why you do it.
Jordan Haines: Yeah. Help more people become financially healthy, I think that’s amazing. Well, um, this has been a fun conversation. Tell [00:45:00] us one more time about the webinar. How do people learn about that? How do people sign up for it?
Um, give us the details
Abby Morton: June 10th. June 10th, uh, at noon mountain time again, Reese and Jeff are going to be joining us. All we’re talking about that day is how to sell, how to price, how to overcome obstacles from employers that they may have when you’re selling this program to them. So it’s all about selling. If we need to do additional trainings about what happens after that, we definitely will do that.
Um, if you don’t have the invite to the webinar, you can always reach out to us, uh, cs@getelements.com. We’re on the CS team Jordan, so we’ll, we’ll include that email. We know that one works.
Jordan Haines: And, uh, if I can get a link, I’ll put it in the description of the podcast as well people can
Abby Morton: We will for sure
Jordan Haines: Um, well cool. Uh, we’ll have more of these conversations, I’m sure, and, uh, it’ll be really fascinating. So if you wanna learn more about what a membership program like this looks like and how to go direct to employer, um, please join us and we’ll share all the secret sauces.
Abby said. Um, [00:46:00] any parting thoughts? Abby? No.
Abby Morton: Thanks for having me on. I love this conversation. I hope our listeners found it valuable and it’s always great chatting with you
Jordan Haines: Okay, love it. Thanks, Abby. Thanks everyone. We’ll see you next
Abby Morton: See ya.