How advisors are using Income Lab with their clients Panel Discussion - November 2023

all right Welcome to our webinar today retirement income Intel how advisers are

0:09

using income lab with their clients we have three panelists here today that have so graciously offered their time

0:16

and thoughts on this topic and we also have Justin Fitzpatrick who will be doing the largest majority of moderating

0:23

here um want to welcome everybody we will give everybody just a little bit of

0:29

time to get started um as it heads up we do have a another webinar coming up uh

0:36

on December 5th with helista plan so if you haven't seen that invite please sign

0:41

up for that webinar also we have for our income lab users lab talk Tuesday coming

0:47

up on December 12th so if you haven't haven't registered for that um it is a

0:52

webinar that continues to get Praises because our advisers get to dive into our software with our experts and get

0:59

questions answer answered in a deeper level so with that um also there is a survey at the end where we really value

1:06

your feedback and suggestions for ongoing webinars so please take the time when we end this webinar it will pop up

1:13

and fill out that survey as we do value your opinion so with that I will pass it

1:18

over to Justin thank you all for joining and Justin there you go thank you Taylor

1:24

and thanks everybody for joining us on the panel webinar today these are our most popular

1:30

um webinars by far because uh you know you get to to hear how actual advisers

1:37

are running their practice how they're using income lab in their practice and that's exactly the the topic for today

1:43

so I want to welcome and thank our three panelists Dylan Cobb from Simply human

1:49

advisors Jason juel from Carson wealth and Jimmy Miller from boabab wealth

1:56

management um and uh I we were just talking before we started uh about how

2:01

how great it is on these on these webinars and really even just getting to know um the advisers who use income lab

2:07

the the range of of practices and approaches people take um so I wanted to

2:13

actually start by asking our panelists just asking each of them I'll I'll I'll

2:19

call on you in turn to just um maybe talk briefly a little bit about your

2:25

your business your practice your approach um you know your clientele

2:30

and um maybe tease a bit um how income lab plays A A Part in in that um so

2:38

maybe uh Jason you're you're first on my screen so we'll start with you yeah Jason juel Carson wealth um you know as

2:45

we think about our clientele serve 270 families about 500 million uh assets

2:53

under management clients spread throughout the country which is what what's great about technology in this

2:59

day and age is we can serve anyone and everyone without any geography and restrictions now the folks we really

3:06

focus on and serve best is kind of that 55 to to 75 year old client really in

3:12

the near retirement phase or in that distribution strategy where we can really emphasize the importance of what

3:20

accounts we withdraw from in what order and what amounts and ultimately what's the tax consequence or benefit of of

3:27

those particular strategies which really folds into much what we're going to talk about today

3:33

excellent uh Dylan how about you sure Dylan Cobb and simply human advisers is

3:40

my company I'm a year and a half old in my owning my own firm I've have about 17

3:47

years of experience in this industry I'm a CPA and certified financial planner um despite being a CPA I I don't love

3:56

diving into the weeds with clients um and I find that most of my clients don't

4:01

either and the reason for that I mean most of my clients are 60 to

4:07

75 most of my clients are Suddenly Single uh whether that's death or

4:13

divorce and what they're looking for is more simplistic visual education that

4:20

they can they can digest easy and I you'll hear me I try not to rail against

4:27

financial planning software but I don't like financial planning software and and

4:33

there's something visually appealing and easily digestible about income lab just a few of the pieces that that are just

4:41

they're just intuitive when people see them so we we'll get into that um but that's a bit about me and my client base

4:49

perfect thank you and Jimmy can you tell us a little bit about your practice Yeah

4:55

I'm an raia bobab wealth management uh been around since 2000 uh I'm a solo

5:00

practitioner with one assistant I serve about a hundred households that I love about 100 million under management um I

5:08

keep it right about there to keep the lifestyle practice I focus on retirement income planning mostly I'm a goals based

5:14

not a cash flow based a type advisor I don't get into the weeds um like Dylan

5:19

with with with that with clients um and I also serve a lot of expats I'd say

5:26

about 75% of my clients are Americans that are living or one live retire work Adventure overseas I spent about half my

5:33

life a little more than half my life overseas uh so it's a good Niche for me to serve uh there's a lot of financial

5:39

planning issues when it comes to retirement income planning that income lab helps with especially when working

5:44

with expats overseas great thank you and yeah I

5:50

already hear some uh some themes uh coming out here about kind of um being

5:57

able to talk with clients at the right level um not wanting to get into the

6:02

weeds um if you don't have to um and so on so maybe I'll I'll start kind of by

6:09

asking about about that so um maybe if

6:14

you if you wouldn't mind sharing some of the the the ways that you use income lab

6:20

with clients uh and maybe in particular um hit on both you know sort of the

6:26

arriving at a plan analytical side but maybe even more importantly the communication side are there are there

6:33

maybe even if you want to walk us through a a a a real or you know uh an

6:40

anonymized client situation or something like that to help us understand um you know how you uh use income lab with

6:47

clients and maybe we'll just reverse the order here and start with you Jimmy sure sure so for retirement income

6:53

planning I really like to to show clients you know two different approaches to income planning I I do use

7:00

uh money guide Pro as well as income lab for the traditional Monte Carlo analysis

7:05

um I'm big into what Michael kits has frames a lot today and you guys in income lab it's not about success and

7:11

failure with Monte Carlo it's really I show clients it's you know an 80% chance

7:17

we don't have to change anything along the way and a 20% chance we have to change things along the way which is really the proper way to frame Monty

7:24

Carlo I think um with clients so they really understand and let's most clients

7:30

they like that Simplicity um like Dylan said and they like to think about like that I mean what client is going to

7:35

retire for 30 years and not agree that there's probably going to need to be a change somewhere along the way now with

7:42

income lab I can really illustrate that quite easily I love the part of income lab where it shows the guard rails

7:49

because I've always been a big proponent of using a three bucket system putting guard rails on it and yes right there

7:56

you can really see especially when you hit the view more where they sit uh for income and then what the upper and lower

8:03

guard rail is I use the terminology they're kind of like the bumpers when you go bowling I think a lot of advisers

8:10

use that clients love it and it really gives them a good idea of what the rules

8:17

are going to be for retirement they they like to know what's going to happen how

8:22

are we going to manage the money what are the barriers both top and bottom that we're going to reach it gives uh

8:27

real concrete things to take action on with the clients and um in mind there's

8:33

also like a little slider on the bottom that you can change if we want to be more aggressive or with our income plan

8:39

or less aggressive and move those barriers to kind of show them what the realistic range is this is a super way

8:46

just like that to show clients what retirement income can look like uh for them so that's one of the

8:53

key features that I use um the other real key feature that I love to share with clients is the historical

9:01

analysis uh the way I explain this to clients is you know this is the Monte Carlo looking backwards this shows if

9:08

we'd have retired you each month looking back in history how a 30-year retirement would have looked for you based on how

9:15

we have you asset allocated and this gives peace of mind to clients I mean

9:22

most programs can stress test and income lab can as well really in a really great

9:27

way in showing what the income actually did through different stress tests but this chart right here really shows

9:33

clients that hey if you to stuck with your advisor stuck with your plan stuck

9:39

with your asset allocation through thick and thin over some of the best and worst times through history things have always

9:45

worked out I'm a Nick Murray guy I'm an equity Zealot um you know I believe my

9:50

value doesn't come in Investment Management my value comes in behavioral investment counseling and keeping

9:56

clients sticking with their financial plans through thick and thin over time and this is the best tool that I have

10:03

found I say it honestly I'm not trying to just promote income lab I say it honestly is the best tool that I found

10:08

to really show clients why sticking with it over any time period that they could

10:13

possibly come up with good times or bad times really works um and that gives

10:18

them the Peace of Mind perfect so yeah following on that

10:25

theme of you know keeping it simple and connecting with people uh in terms that

10:31

they understand it's the guard rails and them understanding all right life can

10:36

change and we have we have a plan for change um and and I'm your guide along

10:42

the way I'm going to make sure we we follow this plan and and and talk about our options and then the historical analysis giving giving comfort that hey

10:50

you know future could be different from the past but we've had some dark periods in the past and uh this is how things worked in the

10:55

past Dylan how about you how do you use in lab with with clients uh do you use

11:01

some of the same visuals do you use different ones uh yeah one of the same I use the

11:08

the guard rails that that's a that's the first thing that I I show clients when I

11:13

when I jump into my planning software in fact I use right Capital uh as well I

11:21

don't show anything out of right Capital um I really only stick to these guard

11:27

rails and I also show uh where you have

11:34

the how often will it increase and how often will it decrease um out of the

11:40

test plan there I show them uh these two the income adjustments not necessarily

11:46

the life experiences but just the income adjustments and then I also really love

11:52

the cash flows because I want to give a visual

11:58

for they they can see these or they can think these things in their mind but to

12:03

have a visual of it this is where it's coming from and uh Derek Tharp did a video just last week or posted one where

12:10

he talks about he he utilizes some of this uh the the guard rails and these

12:15

these cash flows and this is a really good visual for when people need to and

12:22

I love the way he presented when they need to take distributions early and it

12:28

and it creates a lot of hesitation or fear from people I'm not quite Social

12:34

Security age uh or full retirement or maybe the the age 70 but I think for for

12:41

you Mr client that might be the best thing to do is delay that to age 70 because you have a lot of longevity you

12:48

know for whatever reason and and so here we can show that we're going to take more distributions up front and guess

12:54

what you're going to be fine as it goes on this visual is really powerful for

13:00

clients to just see it and and uh that they can they can see that oh income's

13:06

going to continue to go up inflation is something that's very hard for clients to understand so I typically only show

13:14

the nominal I don't show it in in real and you can you can toggle this back and

13:19

forth inflation adjusted versus just nominal I leave it at nominal because

13:26

it's easier for people to follow it it it looks uh some people might want to dig into

13:33

that well tell me about inflation and you know well we can get into those weeds they're all here I love that

13:40

there's this mono Monte Carlo Jimmy mentioned the Monte Carlo backing all of

13:47

these scenarios but my clients don't want to get into the weeds of what Monte Carlo

13:54

is and what we don't even talk about it but they do appreciate the fact that

14:00

there's a powerful calculator back here that's that's following up or at least the foundation for these these scenarios

14:07

that are calculated periodically just like Jimmy I will have somebody who asks about historical

14:13

analysis because they were raised by the Depression era parents and so when you can show

14:21

this what you know if you if this were the depression and you

14:27

retired now here's what it would look like and that's powerful I I really

14:32

don't want to get into that level of depth usually that is a fear based when

14:39

somebody's coming from that with questions about that but the fact that it's there and I'm able to pull that out

14:47

and show it is is really powerful when I need it so um I I'll stop there we'll

14:53

answer some more questions in a little bit excellent thank you Dylan and Jason

14:59

last but not least um what are some of the ways that you use income lab with

15:04

clients and you know are there they parts of the app that you you like to use with you know every client some

15:12

clients um and and so on sure so I'm GNA kind of set the stage and you know we

15:19

work with a lot of senior leaders a lot of Executives a lot of multi-generational families you know

15:24

really those folks that have the means to meet their goals and so as we're having

15:32

conversations with newly retirees what we found is they had developed this

15:39

significant financial discipline where they made all these sacrifices during their working years and I'm I make this

15:47

climb to the top of the mountain type type movement here because as you're you're climbing to to the top of the

15:53

mountain to reach the summit and the summit being retirement you know you do make a lot of sack sacrifices whether it

16:00

was for your family whether it's for your children and and you really potentially don't live out your your

16:06

financial dreams in the moment because you want to live those in retirement you want to have a bright future in

16:12

retirement the balances in your account that can support that future and so when those individuals do reach retirement

16:19

what we found is they tighten up their first strings times two times five times

16:25

10 and so that psychological challenge where they truly are going from their

16:30

their hat facing forward to turning the hat around backwards it's very very different so how do they turn their

16:36

hard-earned money into income and how do they they

16:43

have a plan in place that gives them permission to actually spend their money

16:49

and that's where we focus on spending capacity the amount of money an individual can can

16:56

spend and the amount of money that is supported based on an individual's portfolio Social Security pensions so on

17:04

and so forth so that's really that's that's where we focus our attention is that spending capacity and helping

17:11

clients understand what's possible and through that conversation a lot of times

17:17

we'll mention something the tune of you know what if what if you were looking down from

17:23

above and evaluating your situ sitation what

17:29

would you have done differently how would you have handled life differently and that spining

17:34

capacity really helps us open up that door and help them understand what is

17:43

possible yeah that we we've heard themes like that from some other advisers well

17:48

this idea of giving people permission to live their life or um I I don't know how

17:57

giving them confidence um because yeah I've even been surprised to the level of which there there are of

18:03

course people in the world who are overspending their resources and so on but it almost seems more common to find people who are like you said really

18:11

tightening up being even more uh conservative in their spending when they

18:16

hit retirement um and that yeah this framing

18:21

it as spending capacity like this is what you could spend you know if you're spending within this you're are fine um

18:30

that that really seems to make a difference um I know Jason you also mentioned um on

18:38

the tax side that you do um some some work there as

18:44

well uh wonder if you could share with us sort of ways that you use the app you know terms of a phrase that you might

18:50

use uh to to to start that conversation um that that we could

18:56

share yeah well you know there's two two guarantees in life and we can't use the

19:02

g-word in in our industry but there are two guarantees in life and that is unfortunately death and taxes and I

19:11

heard a phrase recently from a client and and you all should should continue to use this phrase and that was I'm

19:17

willing to pay my fair share of taxes but I don't want a tip so what does that mean well what it means is through

19:25

through decumulation and withraw draw strategies where are appropriate accounts to take

19:31

distributions from in order to create tax efficiencies and there's a lot of

19:37

strategies out there right and and income lab does a great job kind of outlining those in the tax Center and so

19:44

you know we've got the ability to to quantify different strategies and

19:49

approaches whether that's your conventional approach right which would be your taxable distributions first

19:55

which you erode moving on to the pre-tax and last but not least the taxfree or whether it's the prata um or or whether

20:03

it's evaluating the advantages of Roth conversions and looking at Dynamic

20:09

distribution strategies or maybe more importantly Dynamic time sensitive and

20:14

the thing about retirement is it is it's an evolution it is very unique and not

20:19

only are we putting our hat around and turning our hat around backwards but the

20:25

life that I'm living today and the life that our clients live today is very different than life that they're going to lead in a year in five years in 10

20:33

years and so we need to be able to adjust whether that's adjusting to their lifestyle and the desires they want to

20:40

lead whether it's adjusting to markets and and the changes within markets with

20:45

fluctuations and volatility or whether it's changes within tax code and that's where where being able to quantify these

20:53

distribution strategies is incredibly helpful and what I'd want to note is there is a textbook answer and there is

21:01

a psychological answer what do I mean by that well let's talk about tax cuts and jobs act so here we're under the tax

21:07

cuts and jobs act back since 2017 and we've got the ability to leverage this tax code to our advantage

21:14

and potentially through Roth conversions tax bracket management and being able to

21:20

demonstrate and quantify if we if we executed a Roth conversion of XM

21:28

targeting the 24% tax bracket what's going to be the advantage how much in

21:33

tax savings results What's the total net income as a result what's the net Legacy

21:39

impact right with the changes to to the secure act and and changes to that

21:45

10-year um you know uh period with a beneficiary and a beneficiary IRA and so

21:52

truly helping clients understand okay if we target the 24% tax bracket over the next three years via Roth conversions

21:59

here's the impact well what if we target 32 that might feel uncomfortable right but but how do we

22:06

quantify what the true savings would be and then let's take it a step further though what would you do with that

22:13

money because that's that's where rubber meets the road I think as advisers we we

22:19

get caught up in solution solution solution but our real job my real job is

22:27

to help clients identify a problem and then through the solution

22:34

how do they benefit and not focusing as much on the solution but focusing more on the

22:40

benefit and how would that benefit shift their life how would that benefit change

22:46

the trajectory of what they want to do in retirement how that's going to impact them directly from a financial

22:53

perspective but also their family I think that that last point is a

22:58

really good one definitely a good one for me to remember because I I am you know analytical by Nature so I might be

23:05

tempted to sort of say well this is the end of the the story right here well look you know $600,000

23:11

more that's it right but that taking that next step of okay but what how does this affect you what does your life look

23:17

like it actually connects back to this the um I forget who was saying it the focus on spending capacity it's just

23:23

think about what does your life look like in that situation um Dylan I know

23:28

you you came off mute there do you have something you'd like to add there yeah yeah I was gonna piggyback on that that

23:34

Tax Center for just a second uh again I'm I'm a CPA and I've I've prepared

23:39

thousands of tax returns and at the end of the day there there are so many

23:45

variables to this that it's really hard to pinpoint what is going to impact it and

23:51

and how it's going to impact it most of us if we've been doing this long enough you can you can get a gug for what

23:58

you're looking for and you know these variables that are in a client's life what it's going to look like and and

24:06

Justin if you don't mind just just click on that edit button right there and you can see I love looking at

24:14

this real quick before I even pick a a strategy that I I know what I'm using I know what I want to compare it to but

24:21

you can scroll down and you can see how is this going to impact a client if I

24:27

convert through a certain bracket what uh what Jason was just describing and

24:33

how that's going to impact your average tax over a lifetime I love to be able to

24:39

just scroll down and in most cases I already know roughly where I want to go

24:44

and there are some break points that you can just kind of look at it and this is really valuable for me to just run down

24:51

this list and just kind of look at it and validate some of what I'm already thinking and sometimes it even

24:57

challenges me to go back and rethink and and I use uh holista plan so then I'll

25:03

take some of that and then go really mock out some of these scenarios in very

25:09

fine detail but there this is one of the few places where I can look uh income

25:16

lab in all of these tax center pieces there's one of the few places where I can just get a I can take a step back

25:23

and take a big picture look and then just kind of think through and

25:30

invalidate some of what I'm thinking and planning for a client and then realize I want to go up to this point but I don't

25:37

want to go further and even though maybe like what Jason said maybe there's some

25:42

longer term benefits to Roth conversion doing it at a higher bracket now but

25:48

maybe there's contributions charitable or some other piece or maybe maybe I just know the client and they're just

25:55

they're just not willing to go this far for one reason or another so again it's just a 30,000 foot

26:03

overview that you can't get anywhere else that's that's one of the things that I love about your tax Center Tax

26:08

Strategies here yeah and I think you you hit on I think Jason you called it there's sort

26:13

of a a mathematical answer and a you know a practical answer or something like that I like how you said there are

26:19

kind of these break points still in like in this this plan with it has particular things to it a different plan could be

26:25

different but okay wow when I go from 12 to 22 that's when I start to see some some real benefit I see smaller benefits

26:32

here and then after that like you said I mean I've seen you know a five basis

26:37

point difference over however long this plan is is nothing to write home about that's you know that's a rounding error

26:43

right so I I like how both of you hit on that there's some art to this it's not pure science um I like that a

26:51

lot um I wanted to since all of you have been you know using income lab for you

26:57

know a while now I wanted to ask a bit about what beginning to use income lab

27:04

was like for you how it changed anything in your practice and then also how your

27:10

clients reacted to it you know especially ones maybe that you you already had and then you introduced this

27:15

tool to them I know that's a question we get a lot from from new users is well what's the transition like is it is it

27:21

disruptive or is it smooth um uh Jimmy I know when I we actually met in Miami not

27:27

too long ago and I I know you you were you were saying you'd had a lot of good experiences with that so I'd love to hear about that

27:34

experience yeah absolutely I also like to just say I also use the tax Center quite a bit with clients um the whole

27:41

Art and Science the way I frame it is I use the Goldilocks and the Three Bears I just wanted to add that in there all

27:47

right I can mathematically show somebody why doing a major Roth conversion mathematically makes the most sense to

27:53

them but right maybe that porge is just a little too hot but they understand the purpose for Roth conversion that they

27:59

don't want to do not do any Roth conversion and maybe that porge is just a little too cold right and I helped

28:04

them find that porge it's just right so that's the analogy I use there with the tax Center when I when I shown that

28:10

stuff I'm a big Roth conversion guy as well I wrote a book a couple years ago called divorce the IRS um I haven't been

28:16

audited by the IRS since I wrote that book and um it's really changed my

28:22

practice and uh writing the book and it's really a book about Roth conversions and all the TX time bombs

28:28

that can come uh from having pre-tax money uh so you your question about

28:34

using income lab out of the gate uh I'll be honest any software especially a

28:39

complex financial planning software is always going to have a steep learning

28:45

curve it it takes time you have to you have to dedicate time to learn a new

28:50

software whether it's income laborary or holistic plan or any other software so there is some learning stuff now if

28:57

you're coming from another financial planning software I mean you could use income lab as a standalone I think a lot

29:03

of people use it on top of right capital or money guide Pro or something like that you know a lot of it's going to be

29:08

familiar you got you learn where things are where to put them in and you just can't be afraid when you're sitting with

29:16

a client for the first few times to let them know hey this is a new a new software to me things are always

29:22

evolving in our industry and if there's something on there that you just don't I don't know how coming up with that

29:28

number I don't know why there's a dip in the graph right there just I just share that with a client I say you know what

29:33

I'm not really sure off the top of my head why that is but I can assure you that I can find out for you right I got a whole team at income Labs that can

29:39

help me dissect that figure it out um you know I don't want to give you a wrong answer but I'll get the right

29:45

answer for you for you on that and you'll be surprised most of the time you probably won't run into that and of

29:50

course many advisers have had that experience and clients love it really honestly when you just you're honest with them and tell them I don't know the

29:56

answer to that right I don't know why it's saying that let me figure that out and get back to you um you know income

30:02

lab I think most advisers like we're hearing on the pan from The panelist Today are using it at a very high

30:07

educational type level and not getting so deep into the weeds if you're going to get if you have clients that want to

30:13

get deep into the weeds you're probably preparing for it or you're also maybe an engineer type financial adviser cash

30:19

flow advisor and you're going to dissect income lab to that level before you start presenting it to your client so

30:25

whatever kind of adviser you are I would say don't be afraid to jump in and use income lab with clients that's how you

30:30

you get that experience and learn their client reactions what they like what they don't like um yeah it's it takes

30:37

some time to learn like that that comment also about um you know things are always changing

30:43

in our industry there's new tools that that come along um you know certainly your clients would expect you to be

30:50

keeping a breast of those right so um introducing new things is is uh is kind

30:57

of par for the course I guess um Dylan and Jason either one of you have I you

31:03

know heard feedback from clients when they first saw this or or have stories about the transition yeah I'll give just a a quick

31:11

summary so uh I'm a Carl Richards drawing them back of the napkin type of a of an advisor that's the way I I

31:18

present to people so and the reason why I've never liked financial planning software is because they're so

31:25

overwhelming I mean how many of us look over the shoulder of one of our contemporaries uh custombuilt Excel

31:32

spreadsheets and we're all Excel people and and it takes us a minute to orient

31:37

ourselves and and our contemporary has to explain what we're looking at so that that is true in any presentation in any

31:46

software and and yet I think you guys have done just the right like you say

31:52

the the porridge analogy the Three Bears this is this is just right where I can

31:58

take visually some of the things and explain in-depth con uh uh concepts with

32:06

clients visually that that my clients who again if I'm talking to somebody

32:11

who's recently widowed recently divorced e even a couple of years out sometimes

32:17

it's very hard to process all of what we do but visuals help and this is so uh

32:26

visually appealing and it and it explains what I'm looking to explain and I find that most of my

32:34

clients are simply trying to answer the question how much can I spend and I've

32:40

always I've always used that question and then when I saw that you guys built the software that has in the system that

32:49

that basically answers the question how much can I spend I said I've I've got to learn more about you guys you've

32:56

answered the question that I've tried to answer on the back of a napkin for uh

33:02

almost two decades now of of planning and so that's the short summary so I

33:07

specific to how it's received from clients my clients continue to give me

33:13

feedback I'm a visual person these visuals help that comment sorry go ahead Jason

33:21

you want to answer that question too oh no you're you're you're doing great I'm just thinking there's so many sound bites uh you know Jimmy sound bites

33:28

Dylan sound bites that are that are coming out of this session you know as we think about the dynamic nature of

33:34

retirement the dynamic nature of of the markets and how do you marry those two together that's where I think the

33:41

history uh that Jimmy or Dylan had pointed out earlier comes back into play if you're able to look back over the

33:47

last 30 years how an individual's income would have had to adjust um based on the

33:54

nature of the markets but then you know as we think about you know that that kind of quote unquote spending capacity

34:00

and we think about those guard rails I I've found that clients really

34:07

like the idea of having a Target and we've got a really clear-cut

34:13

expectation of the upper guard rail and the lower guard rail upper guard rail being a portfolio value and how that

34:22

portfolio value would grow to become and at that point

34:27

the client would be eligible for for a pay increase versus the opposite which which they're more concerned about or

34:34

interested in and that's the lower guard rail in the lower guard rail how far would their portfolio need to fall based

34:42

on their current allocation in the markets for them to have to take a pay cut and then realizing that oh my gosh

34:49

this the pay cut actually isn't nearly as substantial as I would have thought or furthermore the guard the lower guard

34:56

rail is much lower than they expected the portfolio need to fall substantially

35:02

further than they ever would have imagined before they would even need to adjust their income potentially reducing

35:08

their income so that that's that's a big ey so do you use this uh the retirement

35:14

stress test to to show that to tell that story Jason well we we all have um you know

35:23

these clients that have deep rooted Financial um um just understanding and

35:29

maybe they went through the Great Depression their parents went through the Great Depression so they've got this influence from their parents and so when

35:36

you can overlay the Great Depression uh as as drastic as that was and to show

35:41

them okay during the Great Depression here would have been the impact to your retirement plan um or 2008 that's that's

35:48

much more front and center for people's minds to to throw up the global financial crisis as an example here

35:55

would have been that influence so so being able to run the gamut historically back to to the depression

36:02

to to current is is quite eye opening

36:08

yeah um I wonder uh if we could maybe uh

36:15

we'll sort of wrap up our uh panel discussion and eventually get some some questions here I know there's quite a

36:21

few but um wrapping it up I guess uh are

36:26

there are there ways that um any other you

36:32

know ways that you communicate this declines I think that's been one of the biggest uh the biggest pieces like you

36:38

said Jason is getting some of these sound bites that people can take back to their practice things that resonate

36:43

really well with clients you know the Goldilocks metaphor I think is a great one for um for Roth

36:52

conversions um maybe it can also be used for for guard rails as well um are there

36:57

other things that you say to clients when you're presenting for example uh adjustment based planning guard rails

37:04

and so on I think we heard the bumper bowling that was uh also from you Jimmy that's a great one um any other things

37:09

that you found resonate really well with clients yeah the the other thing I'm big

37:18

about sequence of returns risk and I love to use that historical chart to really demonstrate sequence returns risk

37:23

of course when the market runs up and clients you know they their portfol run up and I hit that million doll Mark or

37:28

whatever it is they really they I can retire now and most people don't realize that when the markets have run up and

37:35

you're at the very top of the market your portfolio is the biggest it's ever been but it's maybe actually not the

37:40

best time to retire because you you have a more likely negative sequence or returns in front of you and higher

37:45

chance for those adjustments and things like that clients don't intuitively know that and I like to use income lab to

37:52

share that why often times retiring when the Market's down is a much more sec your way to retire and this makes people

37:59

who want to retire when the markets maybe aren't doing so well like now feel much better that oh I didn't even think

38:04

about sequence of returns risk and going forward I'll probably likely have a positive sequence of returns risk and you can use income lad to really

38:11

demonstrate how having a positive sequence returns uh in the first five or 10 years of retirement makes a whopping

38:17

difference in the overall plan how much uh the Monte Carlo adjusts how much you might have to make adjustments and

38:24

things like that so I love using income lab for sequence of returns risk to demonstrate that to to clients for sure

38:32

um you know the other thing I like about income lab is that I use like you I like to use guard rails and my clients like

38:38

it that I speak to them in that kind of language I'm a big proponent of risk aliz also nitrogen you know I can also

38:44

we always talk about Investments not as risk as the speed we're driving our investments it looks like the speed

38:49

limit sign right and through income lab I can really marry it with nitrogen and

38:55

figure out with each client hey we're going to sit down today and we're going to figure out you know what speed you like to drive but what speed do you need

39:01

to drive to get to that destination if you're driving across the country to a wedding in in the other side of the country you got to figure out what speed

39:08

you need to drive or when you need to leave right and that's marrying nitrogen with income lab can really show that and

39:14

if you need to drive a little bit faster income lab is a great tool to show them how if we increase the speed a little

39:20

bit how that's going to impact the amount of income that they can have and those guard rails and how it all starts

39:26

to come together so clients know that you got the total picture of what the client is trying to do how different

39:33

things interact with each other and it just gives them that peace of mind to trust you as that advisor so you can

39:39

keep it at that high level and give them that peace of mind uh can we click on the life Hub

39:46

we've we've gone 40 minutes we haven't even looked at the life Hub yet uh I

39:54

have a client who I did show just a a

39:59

clipped this and showed a picture she's a a widow and she said oh look there's

40:06

me right there in the middle and uh and and I didn't have it all expanded I

40:11

think I had the second one the the middle one where it was just that that summary right there just because I

40:17

wanted her to visually see this is everything you've got and this is it's all in one neat little picture for her

40:25

and I didn't have to rec create this wheel and and I love that she said oh there's me right there and the little

40:31

the little person right there so yeah it's uh I I've heard that from a

40:37

lot of advisers like the the power of seeing your whole financial life in one place I I don't think I understood ahead

40:44

of time how how great that was for people like how much confidence that actually gives them it seems so simple

40:50

because you know like I said it's easy to get into the wanting to do a lot of analysis and things but um yeah I've

40:57

definitely definitely heard similar feedback um now you'd really take this up a notch if I could add their picture

41:04

to the center of that that's a that's that's definitely been uh discussed

41:10

around here for sure yeah not a lot of people have blue and green clients hopefully

41:18

so okay um Justin there is a question since we are talking about life Hub um

41:24

how often do all show life Hub and how much time do you spend with it do you show it more frequently or earlier for

41:30

newer clients or have a process to always review it with all

41:37

clients I am G to admit I don't use this much um I only use it as a essentially a

41:46

replacement for a net worth statement it's just a visual replacement for that

41:51

I'm really not digging into it I might I I have shown it with one client recently

41:57

where um I kind of fast forwarded through a few things just to demonstrate that I'm looking at Future pieces and

42:05

you can see on the timeline there of of Milestones I'm this is where I I

42:10

hesitate to really go through a lot of this because I don't want the client to

42:16

get lost I just want a big picture visual but this does help me demonstrate that I'm looking at lots of variables

42:23

over a long period of time and there are miles stones and I really don't want to

42:28

do much more than that if if that helps yeah that that does make sense if

42:35

if you know this can be a way we've heard for people to well a in kind of Discovery and and

42:43

and so on it can be a real uh incentive for certain people to make sure that you know their picture is full but I can

42:49

certainly imagine there's a lot of pieces here so it got be a little confusing for some people Jason what I

42:55

would say Justin you know from a from a prospecting standpoint and you all jump in if if

43:01

this has not been the case for you but a lot of times you maybe you meet a prospect you've had a meeting or two

43:07

you've gone through some Discovery and maybe you're jumping into Financial Planning and for whatever reason maybe

43:15

they omitted an account that they they kept at another institution with another

43:21

custodian so when you pull up life Hub it brings their full Financial picture

43:26

to your point Dylan is kind of a net worth um statement and you'll start to

43:33

discover more assets because they they want to see that the accuracy of all

43:38

their accounts the accuracy of their balances and there's almost the competitive nature that comes out of

43:43

them so finding new assets is is a really helpful way to do that but what I would also mention is you know we we

43:51

oftentimes use the the metaphor or analogy of a Rubik's Cube and as you think about cash flow as you think about

43:59

your assets we really need to have a coordinated effort and we need to

44:04

understand when Social Security is starting the amount of Social Security um you know is there a um you know is it

44:12

a married couple how does distribution strategies and Investments blend in

44:18

together we've got Irma brackets um you know there the list goes on but for

44:24

Rubik's Cube to be complete which I can't complete by the way my nephew can do it in 17 seconds it's phenomenal he's

44:31

10 17 seconds um and so a Rubik's Cube you need to have all six sides completed

44:38

perfectly and that's very much our financial situation for truly looking to optimize so how do you optimize Social

44:45

Security how do you optimize um you know your your traditional rooth distribution

44:51

strategies how does a pinion come into play and Dylan you made a a really important Point earlier you know when

44:58

you think about income we might have a client who retires they retire at 62 and

45:03

maybe we're going to wait on Social Security until full retirement age possibly even 70 here we're taking a

45:09

larger distribution upfront from their Investments to supplement their lifestyle then Social Security kicks in

45:16

we reduce that distribution rate and so just to be able to demonstrate all these different cash flows all these different

45:23

time stamps and mile markers like we see up here with the rmd right how how does

45:28

required minimum distribution how does that impact an individual's um tax

45:33

situation how does that impact their Medicare um premiums so the list the list really goes

45:44

on Taylor maybe we'll just uh we'll we'll get through I know we we've got even more questions now than when I last

45:51

looked so yeah we do have quite a few and just a reminder if you'd like to hear them answered since we have so many

45:58

please like them and so we can uh hit the most liked ones um so we do have

46:04

some that are pertaining to investment allocations and stuff like that

46:09

investment management and this one kind of goes back to Jimmy uh how do they integrate Investment Management with

46:16

income lab Jimmy you mentioned using the bucket strategy yeah so in income lab you can

46:23

set the the you can use the default type allocations or you can customize it yourself for what you want to put in

46:29

there um I'm an equity Zealot being a Nick Murray guy uh being the least risky

46:35

over long periods of time uh so I generally use nitrogen or riskalyze much

46:40

more to show and demonstrate the asset management uh side of it apart from

46:47

income lab to show the income side of it so I really use those two softwares for what they're best at and and separate

46:54

that out but you can ad adjust if they want to make an adjustment in their nitrogen portfolio to

47:00

be dry faster as I would say their Investments then I come over and I do

47:05

that behind the scenes in income lab I liked the driving metaphor

47:11

obviously that works really well for nitrogen given their you know the speed limit uh visuals but yeah I I had not

47:17

heard that before about like in a way it's it's absolutely applicable in a

47:23

slightly different way to income lab because you're saying well both how fast are you driving but how fast do you need

47:29

to drive right so you might have somebody who is they're going to struggle to find a way to spend $117,000

47:35

a month and so they don't actually need to drive that fast whereas somebody else might say well it's not it's not crazy

47:40

to you know drive a little faster Drive the drive the speed limit you know if you need to and so on I think that's a

47:46

really that's one I'm going to take away for sure and it is different we're talking

47:52

about risk to your income to your level of spending nitrogen is looking at other

47:59

equally important risks surrounding portfolio levels um but you can kind of

48:04

meld the the language together there absolutely I mean I like to tell people you know you can be too risky you can

48:10

drive too fast if you go driving 100 miles an hour towards that wedding across the country you're probably not going to make it there as fast as the

48:17

person who's only driving 70 because you'll be probably spending a few nights in jail for reckless driving somewhere as you get across the country um so too

48:24

much speed can also hinder you and you can demonstrate that in income lab as well with the with the income for sure

48:31

right the next question anybody else want to touch on that before we move on to the next question okay um which

48:37

reports are these advisers using or are they simply presenting on a screen great

48:44

question I am not using reports and I'm not presenting the the the I'm not

48:51

showing this I'm not logged in with a client I actually screenshot everything and put it into a presentation that I

48:58

built and the there's a couple of reasons for that um even as visually

49:04

appealing as this is I don't want to get lost in all the other things around it I

49:10

want to focus on only the things that I want to focus on so in that uh in the

49:15

guard rails when you click on The View more there I'm just screenshotting the center of this from

49:22

if balance I don't even have that that line down at the bottom because all I

49:28

just want them to focus on the visual and and so I could print that and I

49:33

could use it but it still has a few things around the edge and again I'm trying to ex extreme focus on a few things and

49:42

I don't want to get distracted by too many other things I kind of want to control the conversation so I'm not

49:48

logged in with clients often occasionally I

49:53

do and uh but I'm not using the reports either I'll just I'll just screenshot it

50:01

so if that helped yeah that's great I I do the same

50:07

thing I do interactively use the software with clients um I don't give them reports I stopped giving that a

50:13

long time ago I will screenshot some stuff and put it into like a one or two page summary email or that I I give to

50:21

the clients um I'll often print a report or save a report as a PDF and put in their client file for my own compliance

50:27

reasons and so I can go back a year later and see what were all the numbers that we were looking at last year and

50:33

how things have changed so for my own history um but yeah I do do it interactive the other tool that I really

50:39

like to use with income lab is Loom um being my clients are all over the world and in Crazy places uh in different time

50:48

zones I love to pull income lab up and then just hit a loom recording and kind

50:53

of walk through here's the guard rails here's our spending here's the update whatever your style is for a quick

50:59

review um and then shoot off that Loom to clients it's so it's so proactive and

51:04

clients absolutely love love it they can respond right in the loom it's it's so

51:10

great I second that and actually uh we often have advisers who will ask our

51:16

customer service team questions with loom as well they'll say oh let just show you what's going on here what you

51:22

know can you can you help us out we'll even respond with alom so yeah if anybody wants to check that out I I'd

51:28

encourage you as well Loom is amazing that's a big thing in our industry about doing surge meetings man you want to

51:33

take surge meetings to the next level just to Surge Loom meetings right I mean then you can have your own schedule you

51:40

can record all their reviews you can even throw in others you know how your family's doing pit I mean you can make it as personal as you want and send it

51:46

out to clients and that proactivity really makes the clients feel like you're interested in them you're talking

51:52

to them all the time and it really Cuts cuts down tremendously how often clients

51:57

are contacting you with this question or that question or how they're doing which really frees up your time which is the

52:03

point of surge meetings so surge meetings with loom Jason do you want to touch on how

52:10

what you're using and maybe Dylan you mentioned the guard rails of that screenshot that you grab are there any

52:16

other few that you grab as well just so they know well I've already mentioned the the

52:22

cash flows I love the the cash flows piece and then I screenshot the the how often might this change so if I'm going

52:29

to show somebody the guard rails and yes this this cash flow

52:34

because I want them to visualize where it's going to come from throughout their life but if I'm going to show them the

52:41

guard rails one question that pops up frequently is okay well uh if it hits

52:48

this upper or lower guardrail how often does that happen well this answerers

52:55

that question and in my presentation just beneath these you couldn't do this

53:00

but I I uh put in there some words look it's increasing often it's decreasing

53:07

rarely and so these are I I know people are going to ask that question well uh

53:13

once you see the gar rails well that does happen and and I'm now I'm curious well how often does this happen so this

53:20

answers that yeah and I for those who like to use reports and Jason I'm I'm curious if if

53:28

you do but there are some report modules that Encompass the we think of

53:34

this as the near-term uh income plan uh and then you know this is more of the

53:41

long term okay over a long period of time what might we expect in terms of

53:47

you know are should we expect more upside more downside and and so on so there are some um report modules

53:55

um in particular if if if you're you know governed by finr at all you know

54:02

you might have different ways that you have to uh do reports so um Jason how

54:07

about you how are there do you do live um use of the app do you um do you use

54:13

reports no reports um you know we we've made a concered effort to work with

54:19

financial delegators um and so they they really don't look to get into the weeds I think

54:26

maybe as advisors me in particular I maybe go into the weeds um and it's

54:33

unnecessary and so I've just kind of started asking that question you know how how deep do you want to go and more

54:40

times than not nine out of 10 it's yeah no this is this is appropriate and they just want to know that their money is

54:46

going to last a lifetime or have confidence that the money is going to last a lifetime that they can live the

54:51

life that that they've dreamt and maybe even Dream a Little bigger than than

54:57

than what they thought was possible and that's that's where I think you know income lab serves a great great purpose

55:03

and then of course you know from a distribution perspective the tax planning component really incredible and

55:11

um I didn't I didn't finish my thought and you know I mentioned earlier you know there's a textbook answer and

55:18

there's a psychological answer our job is very much that Goldilocks like Jimmy

55:23

said it's finding that happy meeting it's finding that right temperature but if a client understands how to quantify

55:31

the benefits of a Roth conversion or tax bracket management they can start to get more comfortable with pushing the

55:38

envelope closer to that 24 32% um

55:45

bracket we have just a few minutes left um I looking at the um questions there

55:52

are some more intricate ones that we can answer one on one outside of this but we have two questions that have a lot of

55:58

votes asking where in the world is Jimmy and is that his real office so I thought

56:04

it would be quite funny to just have you address that Jimmy because we have people you know 10 people asking that so

56:10

might as well just have a little humor to wrap this up Jimmy yeah happy to so I'm on the my

56:16

sailing catran it's a 41 foot Fountain Tau laari um I travel around I'm I have

56:23

an office in Anchorage Alaska which I try to spend time in the summer and one in Florida which I spend time in the

56:28

winter and so I sail around Florida and the keys and over to the Bahamas I'm a total digital practice I use Loom like

56:35

I've said and zoom and all that kind of stuff so I'm totally location independent and I find working from the

56:40

sailboat with starlink uh the most appealing thing for my lifestyle practice so that's where I'm at I'm on

56:46

the sailboat today all right um so we I know that

56:52

some people have dropped off but we do have um one more question that has a lot of votes I figured we could maybe pop

56:59

that on Justin what do you think your call sure we might if it's quick one uh it's about Roth conversions so

57:06

when looking at break points for Roth conversions how do you all integrate the Medicare increase in cost and how would

57:13

that impact your decision so it's kind of a heavy conversation but figured we

57:18

maybe we can knock that out yeah I mean we we do include that so

57:24

we treat Medicare Irma just the extra amount as a tax so

57:32

that can be confusing people I've actually had a few people you know look at this and say hey I you know I Medicare Irma is easy I've looked at the

57:38

amounts you have for Medicare Irma here and they're not correct well we're not including the base Medicare premium

57:44

everybody's got to pay that so that's not a tax um so it it's only the amount that's uh that's over it that's here I

57:51

mean maybe we should treat it differently but but that's how we do it so that's included here and I forget who

57:56

it was I think it may have been you Dylan there are just so many moving pieces with our tax system medic is one

58:03

of them taxability of Social Security is another some things are adjusted for inflation some are not I mean it it is

58:10

it is crazy how how complex the system is and so uh as much as possible we're

58:17

trying to include every piece of that um in the calculations here and then roll

58:22

it up to a level that you could actually talk with a client about which is hey given all of that here's how it looks

58:28

like these things stack up yeah Jimmy and I know next week I think you guys have a thing with holista

58:34

plan if you're using income lab holista plan is an easy add-on their Roth uh

58:39

explainer when you upload somebody's tax return and then you use the Roth explainer in their chart along with the

58:45

income lab uh chart and showing the income lab really shows the overview of how much you can save in a lifetime tax

58:51

plan not just in your taxes this year but then the holista plan really shows

58:56

why you're making a good decision at going to the top of the 24% tax bracket or often times or 32 or often sometimes

59:02

just stopping a little bit short of the top of a bracket because you're triggering an AMT or an investment tax

59:09

or social too much Social Security is getting I mean there's a lot of things but that their chart really marries in

59:16

with the the high level view from income lab to what are we doing this year for that Roth conversion with holista plan

59:22

so if you think about income lab you should also I believe think about holistic plan as well yeah go ahead I've

59:30

heard a lot of people talk about it as income lab is about long-term strategic decision making and holistic

59:38

plan is kind of that the last mile or five miles or whatever it is to actually tactically implementing something um

59:45

because like you said there are complexities in your situation could be AMT could be something else that that

59:51

could make the the the implementation slightly different than what you'll see here

59:56

and with that we do have a holista plan and income lab webinar coming up on December 5th so please make sure you

1:00:03

register for that I po the link in the questions but we also have it in email and on our social media sites so um we

1:00:11

are at the top of the hour thank you Jason Dylan and Jimmy for joining us thank you for all of those that attended

1:00:17

and please remember the survey at the end your feedback is always valuable but Jimmy uh they are some people say do you

1:00:23

need an assist um and so there are some funny people today on our webinar so I appreciate the

1:00:31

humor all right thank you everybody thanks so much thank you right