In this episode, Jordan challenges the assumption that human advisors must always be the first point of contact, and discuss how AI and tech tools could provide a less scary entry point for people hesitant to discuss their finances⁠.

Transcript

Jordan Haines:

Hello friends and welcome to another episode of L mentality. A couple of weeks ago over the holiday break. I was listening to, I think it was the last episode of the Kitces and Karl podcast. If you don’t listen to that or watch it, or I think it’s, you can get a transcript of that on kids’s website. Go do that.

Fantastic podcast. You get two really competing personalities that bring in a well-rounded, um, thoughts about things. In particular, they were talking about the role of technology and how that is affecting the future of financial advice. And this has been a debate that I have. Kind of sat on the outside for a long time now.

Yes. Elements is a technology company. So obviously you kind of know where the angle that I’m coming from. But I also am not blind to the fact that humans are needed. They’re an integral part of the process. In fact, the technology that we built here at elements is particularly there to help you enhance your human interactions with people. And so the way that I see technology or view technology is through the lens of those human interactions.

There are certain things that we as financial advisors do that technology will never be able to replace. And at the same time, there are many things that we do currently. That technology is uniquely suited to replace. And one of those is what I want to explore today. That might be somewhat controversial and something that maybe. Many of you have not considered in the past. The obvious ways that we can use technology to replace what we do is things like the functional jobs to be done, right?

Things like sending, meeting notes, taking notes, um, synthesizing information, analyzing information, a lot of the back office process, detail oriented type things. Is a great place for AI and technology to help us. But there’s one area that I think. We have an opportunity as financial advisors to lean into that we’re not doing right now.

In fact, That we think is uniquely suited for a human being. And I want to push on that a little bit. So in this podcast episode, between Kitsis and Carl. Um, Michael Kitsis goes on a little bit of a monologue and I agreed with almost everything in there. Except for, he said one thing that got me thinking. And essentially the point that he was making.

And I’ll see if I can dig this up and share it in our show notes today. Um, one thing that he was feeling is that. Or expressing. Was that money is a hard conversation to have most people don’t talk about money within their. Interpersonal relationships. In fact, when I talk to prospects, many times I will frame my. I do as one of the hardest things to talk about for people.

And that’s why I want them to take their time. Right. Money is up there with talking to your family about sex, religion, and politics, things that people have a hard time. Just having a normal conversation about. And so, because it’s such a scary conversation because it’s so big. And because we have such a hard time as human beings already talking to other humans about money.

Well, then that is the reason why the human being needs to be involved. And it got me thinking. I wonder how many times. We offer a human solution. To a technology problem.

Let me give you an example of this. Um, I’ve been having heel pain on my foot. Promises has a point. I’ve been having heel pain on my foot for. The last couple months and slowly it’s gotten worse and worse and worse. And while I can walk just fine, I get some pain in it. There’s a certain spot of my heel where it’s painful. Um, but I work from home and I live in a rural community.

And so going to any sort of doctor is a big deal. Like it’s a half, half of my day, if not a whole part of my day. And I have to coordinate where I’m going to work or things like that. It’s a big part of that. And I know that if I call someone it’s going to lead to more conversations that I don’t know if I have the time for right now. So I went to a couple, uh, podiatrists and I was hoping to find maybe resources about pain, right?

Just high-level things to kind of help me self diagnose and understand what’s going on. Now. I know many of you are like, we’ll just call the people. Um, And what I found was a bunch of websites. And the only option I had was to schedule a consultation. That’s essentially it right. I could fill out new patient work and it gets scheduled the consultation.

Now I know the rationale. There is probably, well, there’s a lot of things that it could be, and we want the human being to be there to help you navigate that. I understand that, except that felt a little scary for me. And so what I ended up doing is using perplexity AI, which we’ll talk about here in another episode, in the future. Flexi is my preferred tool right now to do a lot of research.

Um, it’s how I searched the web and get answered my question. So I use perplexity to help me understand a little bit more perplexity, help diagnose just briefly. I knew going into it, that it wasn’t going to tell me everything that was wrong, but it was going to kind of get me in the right direction. And it told me basically, Hey, next step that you need to do is go talk to a human being. Now, if I did not have that, or if I did not have Google or the ability to use technology to just get started in that search. Guys, I’ll be honest.

I don’t know if I would do anything about this until it got worse and worse and worse until it was so painful. I couldn’t walk. That’s just, I know myself well enough to know that. What’s going to happen. And if we relate this to personal finance, Because it is such a hard conversation to have. I wonder if we are too presumptive in assuming that.

The human being is the first person that someone wants to talk to. It makes me wonder if there’s a place for technology to be the first place that people interact with. Not because I think it’s better. But because I think it’s less scary.

The finances are. Really emotionally charged. Like I think many of us understand, right. For every decision we make, there’s always an emotional component to that. And if it is already scary enough for us to talk to people that we know like, and trust the most. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that maybe there’s an introduction into these financial conversations by using an unemotional tool. Like AI or technology. Now, this is something that I’m exploring.

I don’t know the answers to this. Like I mentioned last week, this is a theory, a thought, a brainstorm that many of you, I would love for you for your input, your thoughts around this. So the potential solution that I’m exploring right now is using technology as a bridge. As a way. To have a less intimidating entry point, right?

Maybe it’s a short. Maybe what they call a lead back net. Uh, form a calculator on a website. Or an answer to a question using content. If something like that serves as somewhat of a lead into help them come to trust you a little bit more and break down the barriers to make finances, feel less scary. It could help transition clients. From technology to human advisors.

I think there are a lot of modern consumers out there that never engage with a financial advisor. Because they don’t trust us or because they just are uncomfortable having that conversation. And so if we can provide that in-between solution to help them get there. I think that might improve our conversion rates. Bring more people into the fold, help us find more people to serve as a traditional financial planning client.

In fact, this is something that I’m experiencing right now at Dennis visors, where if I bring someone in under a financial coaching or content type service, which we’ll talk about in a future episode, It gives me an opportunity to nurture them for some time, get them more comfortable with these types of conversations. And then break down those barriers so that when they’re ready, we can have that conversation.

It doesn’t feel scary and they’re ready to move forward. So I’d love to get your thoughts. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Jordan Haynes, H a I N E S. Or send us an email to podcast it. Get elements.com. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Um, we’re going to have Abby Morton on again and talk about the things that she’s experiencing in elements, money. Uh, there’s a lot of fun things that are going on over there.

And then I would, I’m going to have a Brandon Galeazzi on he’s. One of our power users. Uh, he’s been on the podcast quite a few times. Um, he has a membership offering. He also gets smart asset leads, and we want to talk to him a little bit more about those. So expect those two, if you’re interested in topics like financial coaching as a standalone service or, uh, purchasing leads and what to do with those are tips that we found really helpful.

Then stay tuned. Those are going to be fantastic episodes for you. And with that, I’ll see you all next week.