Masterclass 1.0 - Class 6: Case Studies in Retirement Income Planning and Management

all right well I will do a quick intro here while people are kind of funneling in um

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just want to say Welcome to our last master class with Jason juel uh Jason it's been a lot of fun working with you

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and you know I just can't even believe it's been it's our last Master Class already it's gone by too too fast um

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it's been a lot of fun but on behalf of income lab I just want to say thank you so much for your willingness to share your experience with the software and

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the practices you picked up over the course of your career I know from the feedback I've seen in surveys advisers

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truly genuinely appreciate it so thank you for your time um and one one quick

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housekeeping item I have here um before I hand it over to Jason and Justin is if you're attending for CE um please be

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sure to stay on the webinar for at least 50 minutes as a minimum and at the end of the at the end of the webinar today

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there will be a feedback survey where you can enter your cfp ID so with that I'll hand it over to Jason and Justin to

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kick us off all right thank you Ashley thank you everyone um yeah today is graduation day

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so uh thank you everyone for um for joining us for the sixth uh of six

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Master Class sessions um just a reminder that materials from the first five sessions are already available on the

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masterclass website you have videos you have some extra content you have um even

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marketing materials that you can use um so please check those out and and let us

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know um what you think if there are other topics and things we're also going to have a survey at the end I think

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Ashley might have mentioned that um that that will have some more questions about the master class itself so um I will uh

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I'll try really hard to remember to launch that at the end and uh and we want to hear your feedback for sure um

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so we've got some really cool stuff planned for today um where Jason's going

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to go through a a case study and then talk quite a bit about um kind of practice management and um and

2:04

communication which uh I think is going to be going to be really great um before we get there um I just want to go over a

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quick summary for those of you who didn't get to all five of the previous classes again please go check them out

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but I want to just do a quick wrap up which is um you know we back in whenever

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that was uh April or something we started by talking about how retirement planning

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is is all around this this question of helping people live the best life they can um and and helping them live a

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fulfilling life often that means experiences um with friends family loved

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ones maybe it's um you know passion projects things like that and we talked about how probability of success really

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doesn't lead us toward that and so we we we tried to shift the con the the conversation over to this concept of

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what can I spend and the most likely spending amounts and how um retirement planning is really about taking

3:04

someone's hand and being with them and helping them always you know live within their means but not live way under their

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means if they don't want to helping them really um you know live their wealth as

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uh as Jason likes to say um so we talked about how probability of success is really probability of under spending and

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how it's really better to think about retirement income planning as balancing risk and reward or balancing the two

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risks overspending and underspending overspending being the obvious one nobody wants to run out of money but UND

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spending being basically the risk of of regret um and we talked a lot about that

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Jason has a lot of um personal um stories about uh clients um who either

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found themselves in that position or found themselves in a position where they said gez I'm really glad I don't regret um you know and I had those

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experiences because you know the the lifespan or health span I was given was different than I'm I expected

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um so we talked a lot about that and I and I think it's really a it's a framing of retirement that clients really

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get um we also talked about how to kind of what the process is for building

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plans in the income lab software so we talked about starting with resources which is really starting with the

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question of what can I spend adding in crucial expenses um maybe final Legacy

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goals doing scenario planning and reaching this core plan from which we do everything else we then spent two

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sessions on doing tax smart distribution planning which got a ton of um of

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content or of comments and actually somebody I saw asked when is uh when's season two um I can definitely imagine

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us doing um you know a taxmart distribution planning master class uh do

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we have some other ideas bouncing around as well but I know that's one where there's been a lot of uh a lot of

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demand um we talked about how to explain the process to clients starting with how

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much can I spend exploring options choosing a plan together and then going into the the monitoring and adjustment

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phase um by the way for those of you who are cfps this is Phase seven in in the

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the financial planning process from the cfp so uh a great thing about income lab is it really it it helps you have a

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process for part of the financial planning process uh it's it's not obvious exactly what that process would

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be if you're doing kind of static planning um we talked about the three

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tax Torpedoes uh Jason I know um does a lot of tax M distribution planning I

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imagine we'll get to some of that today um helping people deal with required minimum distributions the widows penalty

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and taxes to beneficiaries so a lot of value to be found in doing uh planning

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to help people manage this to to lower their tax bill um and we talked about the process

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for taxmart distribution planning so please go back to um you know to

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those uh those previous videos and and check out all of that um if you're if

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you're interested in uh in the all of the all of the details there so Jason um

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getting to today's content I know you have some great stuff uh set up for us here we were going to start with kind of

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um an example client profile and case study I suspect based on you know the

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the the set of uh of clients that that you tend to work with um so please uh

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take it away yeah you know I really work with clients to run the full game

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whether it's the Millionaire Next Door uh that you wouldn't expect to to be

6:50

wealthy or whether it is that seite executive and so you know what I found

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is income lab can really serve The Millionaire Next Door that really

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just has Social Security to manage and as well as their distribution strategies how the off conversions fit into play

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and giving them great confidence to know hey my money is going to last a lifetime uh but I also have this this confidence

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to know that based on my money lasting a lifetime I can live in the present I can

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spend some dollars today and enjoy my wealth but then there's also the more uh

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sophisticated clients the seite clients for example have a have a client uh CFO of a major

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large health care provider um retired before he was 60 and you know when you

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think about kind of his financial makeup you know we were talking a little less than under $10

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million uh accounts were made up of taxable pre-tax Roth and HSA so done a

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really good job utilizing those various vehicles and then from an income perspective naturally was a high wage

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earner and and uh wanted to understand okay how am I going to how am I going to generate income in retirement and what's

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really unique about this particular situation is this client actually had an

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advisor uh from about the age of 40 to 50 and they decided that they wanted to

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index and didn't feel like having an advisor an asset allocation was really

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delivering the value and warranting the management fee that they were paying and so here we've got a prospect at the time

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that I'm in front of and you know they were telling me about their previous experience with an advisor and so I

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ultimately teed it up and said you know can you help me understand what spurred you to take today's meeting and really

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what was flushed out was this fear of the transition from work life to

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retirement fear of generating income in retirement in the most tax efficient way

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possible being able to coordinate not only Social Security which will be an

9:09

element albeit a relatively small element of this individual's income but managing you know those those deferred

9:16

compensation payments pension having rental property U and so how do we

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coordinate this in in a in a universal effort and so it really did boil down to

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his acknowled M that decumulation and generating income and

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retirement was going to be more difficult than saving than investing and growing those

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accounts and so I think that's really important to note and that's where income lab comes into play is how do we

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give clients confidence to know that the future is bright so they can live in the

9:53

present and clients and Prospects believe it or not it took me

10:00

so long to figure this out I used to always solve I used to always want to be

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the smartest person in the room share my experience share my wealth of knowledge

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share my value statement what I can do and how well I can do it um accolades

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and you know assets C management and small number of of families and households we manage and and as

10:24

practitioners you all can appreciate that and I can appreciate that about you but what I found is clients don't really

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care about that what clients care about is they care about themselves and how we can influence their life in a positive

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way and so what i' what I'd like to do is kind of shift from the case study a

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little bit and talk about some best practices and maybe go through some phraseology because I think this is

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really important it's really important what we say when we say it and how we say it uh and I don't get this right

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every time I I constantly critique my delivery uh and I constantly am watching

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replays and and trying to improve by observing that game film and and as I

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observe that game film I'm able to to make those critiques but one area I found um challenging was was the intro

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and you know you you're the engagement with a prospect or client truly starts at hello so they walk in the door and

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you greet them and what's the first thing that you say well what I've

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learned is the first 10 minutes are critical in our experience with that

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Prospect or with that client and that first 10 minutes oftentimes determines

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whether you're going to get put in the friend zone or whether they're going to become

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a client and I don't know if you've ever been put in the friend zone Justin uh

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but but the way that you get put in the friend zone with prospects is leading

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with how's the weather leading with talking about the big game because that

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is less personal to them and it doesn't really allow them to express their

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feelings Express their emotions and so we want to control that

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conversation early with the first phrasing the first questions out of our

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mouth and we want it to be more fiscal in nature more behavior-based in nature

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more psych psychological in nature and we want to focus on those types of questions only otherwise we will end up

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in the friend zone so we really want to avoid that small talk because it truly weakens our

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status um and and a lot of folks really don't like small talk I am one of those

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I like to talk about more deep relevant and imperative and important things and so here's one super simple engaging

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question that you can ask um um and it is just something as simple as it's

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great to see you I'm looking forward to hearing more about what's new in your

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world and then just get them to open up a little bit and that that is the most simple thing you could possibly

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say uh but it it's going to evoke feelings it's going to evoke emotion

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they're going to talk about maybe something that's painful or maybe something that's exciting but it's going to give you more more content and

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there's going to be more authentic communication back and forth or if if that's too simple what I like to do is

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say you know it's great to see you I feel like we have so much to catch up

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on what what do you excited about that's happened the last few

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months okay so that's excited about we're we're looking to

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elicit positive experiences what excited you in the last few months

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um and then you can say you know what are you looking forward to most the remainder of the

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Year super simple this isn't Monumental Earth shattering but it does evoke

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emotion and it Spurs some really genuine conversation another one right we had Father's Day recently hey happy belated

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Father's Day what's one of your F what's one of your Fondest Memories as a

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father right so what what we're understanding is we really want to get into the behaviors the

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emotions and what's important to our prospects what's important to our clients and that'll help us build a

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framework build a foundation of how we're going to work together and we can use those those stories that they've

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told us those experiences that they' shared uh about what excited them recently or what they're most excited to

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down the road this year with how we can how we can help them pursue those goals

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and create more of those memories together um and so you know as we're

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we're in a meeting I will I will always say at some point in the meeting you

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know what spurred you to reach out what spurred you to meet today and you know we really want to

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understand where our clients are versus where they're trying to go and how do we

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help them fill the gap and I will use that language and I will

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also use my hand gestures because one thing we've talked about in the previous sessions and the previous classes is we

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our job is to understand what the client's needs are goals are wishes are

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what their Pursuits are and how do we like we need to understand what this Gap

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is and is the gap they want to be better prepared for retirement is the gap they

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want to live um a life that they don't know that they they could pursue is it

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the family vacation is it a trip to Europe you know what's the destination

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that they're trying to pursue is to really work my hardest to

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understand their ideal destination because people buy results and

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ultimately want to reach a Destin ation they don't buy a solution and they don't necessarily buy

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our process of how we get them to a solution people buy based on results and

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so the way I think of it is nobody goes on a travel site solely

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looking to purchase a plane ticket Justin what's the last vacation

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you took well I just got back from a camping trip right so that because I spoke with

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you when you were you were on your trip uh so so that didn't involve a plane

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ticket how about the last the last trip you took that involved the plane

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ticket yeah we went to see the grandparents in uh okay in in uh in

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Wisconsin in the summer last summer big lot of Lake time beautiful so you went

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to see the grandparents you went onto a travel site Expedia Travelocity whatever it was you booked a plane ticket you

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didn't book that plane ticket for for sake of booking a plane ticket you booked that plane ticket for sake of the

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destination you're were going to see the grandparents you were going to take the family to the grandparents to spend time

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on the Lake in Wisconsin where you could create memories where you could spend time

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together with the loved ones and those that you care about it was the destination that caused you to buy the

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plane ticket this is exactly what we're talking about with income lab yes we

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have the ability to show in great detail how we are going to help solve their

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problem but what's most important in these interactions is to understand what

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is their destination where are they trying to go you know nobody summons an

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Uber for sake of just taking a drive they're trying to go somewhere right

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they are seeking out a destination so our advisor our job as advisers to

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understand our client's goals and our client's de destinations and then we act as their pilot as their driver to escort

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them safely and as efficiently as possible to help them pursue and Achieve those

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goals and that's I I think I missed that for so many

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years there was such a long extended period of time that I I I missed that I

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thought proving my expertise showing them how I was going to solve their

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problem was was the most relevant way to win their business what I realized is

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the plane ticket is a solution to help them Reach their

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destination and that

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destination is an emotionally charged place that they want to

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visit and so how do we help them achieve those goals well we do that often times

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through taxmart distribution strategy that's tax lab right so as we think

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about tax lab as we think about income lab in general let's let's take a step back and

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talk through what motivates indiv indviduals to

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change because that's ultimately what we're trying to compel is we're when we have a prospect in front of us we're

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trying to understand where they are today where they're trying to go can we

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help them achieve that goal and from a client's perspective they want to know that they can trust

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us they want to know that they they like us and they're confident that ultimately we can help solve their problem and help

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them Reach that destination and the challenge is what motivates most

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folks is fear of loss um Chris Voss if any of you follow

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him uh he he says that about 70% of customers are motivated by pain 70% of

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purchasing occurs to avoid pain so it's this fear of loss

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and if you have an individual in front of you are they motivated more by fear of loss and do they have

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more of a scarcity mentality or are they more attracted to sense of gain and

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sense of abundance and I think that's a really important note to mention because as we

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think about tax lab there's a little bit of Secret Sauce we haven't talked about

21:24

yet and this this I think is very very important

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okay so what you'll see here within tax

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lab is you'll see average tax return total taxes total net income net Legacy

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and you see these green figures right so these green figures are valuable but

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these green figures are going to be for those folks who are more focused on

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abundance and not the scarcity mentality so what do I mean by

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that well as we think about column number two total taxes strategy two

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shows that if we of if we erode our taxable accounts first then we deferred to tax deferred and last taxfree that

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strategy is going to result in about $1.6 Million worth of cumulative taxes

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approximately whereas if they would take a Roth conversion approach with more tax smart distribution

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planning they actually would pay about $676,000 of taxes which would be a

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savings of $986,000 what I can tell you is that is a gigantic number it moves

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the needle for many people but the reality is unless you are

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of an abundance mindset that's actually not going to get an individual to act to

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pursue you and your firm to help them with this taxmart distribution planning

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so what you can do as an alternative is you actually rotate strategy one and

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strategy two so instead of showing green figures in tax

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savings now we're showing red figures and this is where we're able to

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position and say okay based on your current strategy it appears that you're going to pay about $1.6 million in

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cumulative taxes tell me a little bit about how that tax strategy came to

23:39

be and more than likely they're they're they're not going to know and so then you're able to take it

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a level further and say well through um modern tax SM distribution planning it

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appears that you are tipping the government about $986,000

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is that by Design or how do you feel about that and

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then to take it a layer further and say you know I know we've talked a little bit about your family in the at the

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initial part of the meeting in the early part of the meeting um I will talk about some of

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their most Dee rooted Financial experiences and I'll have them share one

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of their MO most Dee rooted Financial experiences with me and with that

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experience that they've shared often times they will share how

24:35

their parents or the grandparents went through the Great Depression how maybe they had what they needed as a child but

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they didn't have what they wanted maybe they weren't aware of their

24:47

socioeconomic class as a child until they went to a friend's house and the friends were eating um differently than

24:55

they were maybe the house looked differently than theirs looked maybe the cars look differently than theirs looked

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I I literally just had this conversation yesterday with the client and it was I I had everything I needed I didn't realize

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that we were poor until I was like 10 until I realized that we were

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rewashing my clothes I had three outfits that were on a

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rotation and so when they've shared those Dee rooted experiences with you

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about their family about their upbringing what I will mention is gosh okay so through taxmart distribution

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planning it looks like gosh we're tipping the government about $986,000

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let's let's just think about that for a minute how would $986,000

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Less in taxes more money in your parents pocket how would that have reshaped

25:52

their life how would your child Hood have been

25:59

different what would your parents have done with that money so we're really getting into the

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emotional the behavior the psychology of that upbringing and it allows our

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clients to truly open up about what that dollar amount would

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mean to to their own parents and then from there to shift

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even further and ask how they would reallocate these dollars how would

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$986,000 reshape their lives tell me about that what would you

26:38

do with that

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money our financial experiences are so deeply ingrained uh the

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CFO in the case study that I referenced I asked him about one of his

26:59

most pivotal Financial experiences you know what it

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was when him and his wife were getting married in order to help pay for the

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wedding they sold their

27:20

microwave that speaks volumes it speaks to their financial

27:26

discipline it speaks to the financial strain that they were experiencing and how tight

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things were and as you talk through those previous emotional experiences it

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provides us with perspective of where we've been versus where we are

27:47

today and nine times out of 10 that's a positive experience it elicits a

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positive emotion because we've made strides we've made improvements we've had a sense of

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accomplishment and therefore we start to we start to get this this warm euphoric

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feeling our prospects get this warm and euphoric feeling because they do start to feel this sense of

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accomplishment and so now that they can see where they started and where they're at how far they've come now it allows

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them to open up even more and talk about the future and their dreams and what do

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they want to do as a family how do they see themselves in retirement what do they want this next chapter to look

28:38

like that's great Jason and just um for those of you who who didn't see it

28:44

Jason's um approach here in tax lab so

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the way I heard it was you're gonna have some people who are more in an abundance mindset where presenting something as

28:55

like look what's possible is is really going to you know be psychologically

29:02

effective for them and that's the the default way you'll see it in in tax lab is it'll start

29:08

with you know the more efficient one on strategy one and then taxable tax

29:14

deferred tax free on strategy 2 you'll see these are the same numbers they're just in green right so lower taxes is

29:20

seen as a positive um and so on so I think this is a great um approach if on

29:27

the other hand somebody is more U motivated by seeing Oh if I don't do something what would it look like just

29:34

switch the two around in fact I'm going to talk with our product team about putting one of those little kind of like

29:40

if you have directions on your uh you know your map app right just hey switch the destination and the and the uh the

29:47

origin well no reason we couldn't do a little switch the two but now you'll see

29:53

same numbers but in Red so now it's just higher taxes right um I think that's

29:58

that's really interesting great great little hack here also all these ways of

30:05

talking you'll notice are all focused on getting people into that mindset that we

30:10

we talked about really in the first um three sessions at least first two in

30:15

particular about you know like you said okay you've you've accomplished this what are we what what are we doing in

30:22

life here what's really important to you you're you're I Lov the you know what what's been most exciting lately um

30:28

goals and and so on um we did have a

30:34

um questions here well hey one one for me I'm just curious do you see kind of a mix of that do you see one of one

30:41

mindset is more more typical uh you know kind of abundance versus um you know

30:48

fear um and do you try to if you have somebody who's more fear

30:54

oriented is there a process to kind of get them to you know be less

31:02

anxious there is you know when you think about purchasing financial

31:08

services I don't know the data Justin but how often do you think a consumer purchases Financial Services my

31:15

understanding is the research says if you take life insurance out of it the

31:20

average person will purchase Financial Services twice and

31:28

that's very overwhelming let's think about a vehicle how often would you purchase a vehicle

31:35

well I just bought one back in November it wasn't a great experience I didn't enjoy it but it is something I've done

31:41

before and I will do more um and so there's a little bit of a familiarity there whereas with an

31:48

advisor if you're only purchasing Financial Services one or two times in your entire life there's a lot that

31:54

rides on this decision and there's a lot of anx xiety there's a lot of emotion there's there's what's called uh a

32:02

financial advisor anxiety and that is the fact that most prospects most

32:08

clients are very anxious as they enter a room they're not sure what we're going to tell them for one number one are we

32:15

going to tell them that they're off track um that they haven't saved enough what's the messaging what's our delivery

32:20

how's how's that going to make them feel uh but then number two are we going to use this jargon that is maybe above

32:28

their head and we're going to talk in a foreign language because we want to be the smartest person in the room and so I

32:33

actually tell that at the beginning of the meeting I say you know my job is to

32:39

try to make this as understandable as possible and if I talk in

32:47

jargon please kick me under the table I'm gonna do my best to absolutely not

32:52

do that but if I do please let me know and so when I close after mentioning you

33:00

know the process or talking about taxmart distribution I will ask them did

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did I explain that in an understandable way was that helpful did I did I how much jargon did I use you know make it

33:13

light and keep it Airy and fresh and and they seem to really like that and it brings the guard down right you want to

33:20

you want to exude a level of professionalism I have a tendency to bring in some humor into that as well

33:25

just to lighten the room a bit because that that angst is real and this is

33:31

their life we're talking about this is their their financial livelihood and it's a big decision and

33:38

so that's why that likability is really important but the likability in a professional way it's not Rapport

33:44

building with the weather it's not Rapport building with with the game it's likeability that you're

33:50

relatable um you know it's that trust that they can open up to you and they can share some of their previous life

33:57

experience es uh but then it's also the fact that that that you are a

34:02

professional and that they have a belief in you as their advisor potential

34:08

adviser to help them Reach their destination and pursue those

34:13

goals we have a few more questions on abundance versus scarcity do you have kind of a way of figuring out which you

34:21

know as let's say it's a prospect right some of you don't know um how do how do you figure out which is which and let's

34:28

say it's a couple and maybe they're split maybe one one is a little more one way one is the other way have you

34:34

encountered that before I default to [Music]

34:39

scarcity I typically I default to scarcity all right there you go

34:48

um let's see I'm G see if I can uh knock out a few more of these so we

34:54

have some questions on taxes we'll we'll put those toward the end cuz there a little bit more about how to use the software um

35:01

exactly um a few more questions um for you Jason you mentioned something about

35:08

um and even using your hands about um establishing the Gap can you talk more about what you what you mean by that and

35:16

then you know what is the process for is there a you know Bridging the Gap is

35:21

it is it this we're looking at right okay what can I spend how do I do it is it is it life hub orx lab how do you

35:28

what what do you mean by that yeah so so the Gap is incredibly important Bridging

35:34

the Gap is very important um and so basically what I what I what I want to

35:40

demonstrate early on is that here's where the client is today here's where they're trying to go those are not equal

35:47

there's a gap to fill there's automatically a void just based on my hand gesture uh that that ultimately the

35:54

client or the prospect is is acknowledging what's really important though is to understand where they're

35:59

trying to go and if that is retirement if that is um a certain lifestyle in

36:06

retirement a lcome a spending capacity right how are they going to leverage

36:11

these resources and dollars to their benefit in retirement ultimately that's that's where they're trying to go and

36:17

then my job and the interum is to really do my best ability to understand where

36:25

they are trying to go what's most important to them is it family is it

36:30

friends is it time together is it just sake of of having enough um comfort with

36:37

your finances to be able to to not have to worry about money um and so understanding what

36:45

they're trying to achieve and oftentimes for us it is saving in

36:52

taxes um you know they acknowledge that I'm in a unique phase called retirement

36:58

I am generating or or trying to turn my resources into income how much income do

37:05

my resources support at what point in time if my resources rise or fall will

37:12

that change my income if at all and that's really back to the guard rails

37:19

and in turn it allows our clients that to be able to live their lives um with with a a relatively clear

37:28

expectation you know I've used a phrase before and that is happiness equals

37:33

reality minus expectations if we can set the stage for our clients of what to

37:41

expect and how Market fluctuations or portfolio fluctuations are going to

37:47

impact their income it allows them to live more in

37:53

the present in retirement if allows them to have a greater sense of confidence and comfort

38:01

around their income um allowing them to truly pursue some of their lifelong goals but maybe

38:09

they've neglected in the past or or or chosen not to pursue in their working

38:14

years maybe it was that vacation to Europe my parents for example uh you

38:20

know my my my parents are retired and they've had many visions of

38:27

where going to travel to in retirement and they made these sacrifices in their working years

38:33

because they wanted to save the money to do it later in life and what we all know

38:39

is that tomorrow isn't guaranteed and the pursuit of those

38:45

vacations those travel destinations may not may not be

38:50

able to occur based on their health based on their finances uh and so these

38:56

guard rails give us great confidence give our clients great confidence to know the direct correlation between

39:02

balances in our accounts and income um

39:07

so it's it's one of those one of these situations where if we can set a clear

39:14

and concise expectation it really reduces

39:20

anxiety and that could be related to the guard rails and that could also be related to tax

39:26

lab so Jason you in your example um you mentioned that this was

39:32

someone who had been a do it-yourself or in accumulation and had

39:40

recognized maybe that retirement distribution was going to be more complex that it was going to be

39:46

worthwhile um to have you know expert advice and an ongoing advice

39:53

relationship um what what parts of the process or the

40:00

software or these visuals you know really helped that client um you know

40:08

take that next step sounds like you know they've been through some times that were pretty thin right I mean you know

40:13

selling your microwave um so what what was the effect of of the of your process

40:20

in the software for that situation so being a CFO which you might think would be a

40:28

difficult a difficult Prospect to win um because certainly has great

40:34

knowledge certainly um you know would would have the

40:41

education uh the background to be able to potentially do something like this on their own the tax lab was was huge tap

40:50

tax lab was kind of the game changer um tax lab was was a great way to

40:56

demonstrate and quantify the benefits of taxmart distribution

41:02

planning and so in this instance that's where that scarcity piece and rotating

41:08

the strategy strategy one strategy two to reflect negative where there were

41:13

basically leaving $986,000 on the table AKA tipping the government $986,000

41:21

was was significant way to move the needle and then more importantly how

41:27

would the client benefit how would their family benefit from having an ex-ray $986,000

41:35

for them to spend over the remainder of their plan and then talking through what

41:43

would they do with that money what trips would they take and we actually talk about the granular trips you know the

41:51

trip to Iceland the trip to Italy the trip to Rome the African safari

41:58

we actually talk through those in great detail that's building the Gap because here's where they are and here's where

42:04

they want to go but yes this is the end destination let's have them paint that

42:10

picture let's have them detail out that Picasso because now it's ingrained in

42:15

their brain that is the destination now we step in with the plane ticket to help

42:22

get them to that destination but we want to focus on the

42:27

destination focus on the visuals of how how they sense that destination

42:35

feeling how they sense this family trip with their entire family into

42:42

picture their time together the Laughing that's that that that's

42:49

exciting to them uh and it's exciting to me to talk about genuinely and then all

42:54

I'm doing is I'm just okay well here we go through tax smart distribution strategy it appears that that's all

42:59

going to be possible um and and lo and behold then

43:04

you flip over to guard rails and lo and behold you know you had mentioned you wanted to have about

43:12

15,000 a month in retirement uh to be able to fulfill your needs once and even some of those wishes

43:20

it appears that you're you're underspending your resources if you had an extra $5,000 a

43:27

month how would that what would you do differently in your life dayto day or

43:33

even over the course of the year so we've got a question on your

43:38

process so we've talked a lot today I think it's been great about sort of establishing the tone the goal like what

43:45

you're all about as an advisor right that it's not just jump right in I think you said that at the beginning show how

43:51

smart I am you know get out the calculator um somebody is asking okay at

43:57

what point do you start I mean this plan's already built right how do you get the data that you need to to get to

44:04

the point where you can say Hey you actually have plenty of resources um is that a questionnaire or do you do it in

44:10

a meeting do you have you know somebody on your team doing it um what's the process there and then are you reviewing

44:17

a plan like this in a second meeting um how does all that work there's a number of ways you can do

44:25

it um I don't want to not answer the question but you know Justin Ashley

44:30

we've talked about another Master Class um you know season two of a master class

44:37

and would that be more practice management oriented where we could talk through an intro a discovery meeting

44:44

even the proposal process and a close right so um yeah those are all all

44:50

things that that we can talk through you know when you think about a

44:55

discovery meeting the number one objective of Discovery meeting is to truly understand what what the prospect

45:02

is trying to accomplish after that Discovery meeting is

45:08

complete my next step is to to try to secure that next

45:14

meeting and I can't really provide them with this data the guard rails or the

45:23

smart distribution planning and the tax Center until we actually

45:31

have um till we till we have those financials and so my job going into

45:36

meeting one is to establish trust likability and for them to understand

45:42

that I can help them pursue their goals I then am able to obtain their

45:47

financials to confirm if their goals are realistic or not

45:54

and how we can facilitate how we can assist how much might we be

46:00

able to save them in taxes how much are they tipping the government what is their spending capacity you know that's

46:07

usually that's that's a meeting down the road or two meetings down the road um but one thing I will say is that close

46:15

is really important I know that wasn't the question um but I think that that close

46:20

is really important so you you've got two layers there to get to get clients and Prospects to act because because the

46:27

biggest issue as advisers that we have is no sense of urgency from a prospect

46:34

or a client and they just [Music] choose to remain status

46:41

quo they choose not to change and so that's where at some point

46:47

in the meeting we have to ask why now so you can do this early you can do

46:55

this late I've done it both and why now is relatively simple I

47:04

usually phrase it something to the effect of gosh you

47:10

know as we sit here today yeah I appreciate that you know

47:18

your cander and the opportunity you know you could have you could have evaluated this two months ago

47:27

or frankly gosh maybe maybe you maybe you would be better to wait two years

47:33

from now why now why is this top of mine

47:39

now why are you pursuing these goals now why are we in

47:44

this conversation now and then that's where you're able to to Really better

47:51

understand what is going to trigger them to act as a prospect as a client and

47:58

then you're able to close with a couple couple different closes you could say something as simple as Where Do We Go

48:05

From Here what's a good Next Step um or how would you like to

48:16

proceed do you introduce um the idea

48:22

of ongoing planning that working with you is a it's an ongoing relationship

48:27

um in that first meeting or how do you set that expectation like you said

48:33

about you know the ongoing the the updates the adjustments and and so

48:40

on yeah what do you what do you mean exactly Justin well so the question we

48:45

have here is how do you introduce the idea of ongoing planning I mean maybe they already come in knowing that that's

48:51

what they're looking at instead of just coming in to have a problem solved uh so maybe you go to it all that often but um

48:59

asking that once it's completed are they expecting to work with you on an ongoing basis

49:05

sure uh it's a good it's a good question you know what what I often reference is

49:12

life is an evolution my life in particular is very different today than it was three years

49:20

ago than it was five years ago than it was 10 years ago you know I would have

49:25

told you 11 years ago that I don't want to get married and I don't want to have kids well I'm

49:32

married almost 10 years and I have a 5-year-old and a three-year-old and so

49:37

my point is my goals have evolved over the years my

49:42

life has evolved over the years and financial planning is similar as a client their lives are

49:50

going to evolve over the years who do they want to have in their Corner as their co-pilot to help them

50:00

navigate these changes in life whether that is a milestone of

50:07

retirement or whether that is a Black Swan event in the markets and who do they want by their

50:15

side navigating them through these uncharted

50:23

waters so it's the the ongoing p is implied I guess I I

50:30

I I I don't know exactly where it's stated um I always follow up a question

50:38

with a question to press for

50:46

clarification so like if a client were to ask me or a prospect were to ask

50:53

me you know tell me about your background is there anything specific about my

51:00

background you'd like to know what's specific about my background would you like to know would you like to know where I grew up or would you like to

51:06

know how I help clients roll over their 401K right there's a wide range there so

51:14

I think pressing for clarification is really important and asking a question

51:21

to follow up on their question to press for specifics is really really valuable really really relevant

51:29

um a few other questions I'm in the same vein um let's say you present a a plan

51:37

you know like this with uh you know you've you've gathered the information you've entered uh you or your team have

51:43

entered it um you've worked through that process that we that I reviewed at the beginning here um and people were asking

51:50

if those slides will be available they will we'll be putting them on the on the course website um

51:58

do you ever are people is it generally assumed you're managing all of their assets at that point um it Mark says

52:06

they sometimes have clients who you know want to self-manage some of their assets still um how would you approach a

52:13

situation like that yeah we have we have clients that that kind of have a Play

52:18

account um usually it's not a large account we do have clients uh usually

52:25

when when we onard board they may choose uh to have multiple advisors initially

52:31

I'm always cautious of that um and I'm I'm I'm usually pretty direct with the

52:37

idea that long term you we'd like to earn your business to be able to to to Steward your your full Financial picture

52:46

you know I think with the diversification of advisor scenario there's a difference between diversification of assets and

52:51

diversification of advisors the challenge is in this day and age with indexing and benchmarking there's often

52:58

times less diversification than you might think when you work with multiple advisers and oftentimes it ends up just

53:04

causing disruption because advisor a doesn't know what advisor B is doing and therefore it ends up actually becoming

53:11

more problematic and so traditionally from a retirement perspective that's where we do see Mass consolidation uh in

53:19

your working years usually a lot of clients will have multiple advisors but upon retirement that's where you'll see

53:26

signific consolidation and that's why actually we like to start to work with clients about five years pre-retirement so they can

53:32

dip their till in the water they can get a feel for our relationship our offering

53:38

and ultimately then uh be confident and comfortable to fully consolidate upon if

53:45

not before retirement yeah it strikes me it would be really pretty difficult to give

53:50

someone an accurate picture even just like this um of how

54:00

you know what the guard rails are without at least knowing about all their resources um and then managing back to

54:08

the question of kind of the ongoing management adjusting your withdrawals uh if need be things like that it's going

54:15

to be a lot more complex with another adviser in the picture for sure

54:21

definitely um so we have a bunch of uh more kind of specific questions on on um

54:27

some tax things so we have a question about donor advise funds we have a question about CAC we'll just do some

54:33

videos on those questions because they are very specific they're great questions um but a little bit you know

54:39

they take us a little bit of time to show you here so we'll just do videos on those how how to do those things um also

54:48

a couple questions on what what's happening in tax lab with with um the Roth conversion so we'll just we'll just

54:54

hit um some of the questions um in a video um for everyone um and

55:00

we'll send out an email when that's available um and somebody was also asking about uh

55:09

I know you use holistic plan as well Jason we also had a uh a webinar with holistic plan last week um so somebody

55:16

was asking uh about you know how you how you work um with tax lab and holistic

55:23

plan together I believe we've we've hit on that one before before but we have a few minutes if you want to mention that

55:30

yeah yeah absolutely so you know the way that that we utilize income lab tax lab

55:36

is it's going to be more strategic in nature it's the long-term tax planning

55:41

um you know there's going to be changes in the tax code we're using the information that we have to the best of

55:46

our ability and and that's kind of the longer term format uh but then holistic

55:52

plan is more of the Tactical approach where we get granular yearby year and so it's basically utilizing both

55:59

software um kind of in tandem to understand futuristically

56:06

longterm what's going to be the best decision and then short term how do we actually execute uh some of those

56:14

details you know what what marginal bracket are we targeting what's going to

56:19

be the the Medicare premium impact your Irma brackets right how how do your app

56:26

gains fit into the equation uh those types of

56:32

things makes sense yeah and I would definitely uh suggest checking out I believe our recording is available of

56:38

that webinar with a Lista plan last week so much more on that with some examples

56:44

you know with clicking on the different software and how to do that together um

56:49

we have had a few people asking about new features in tax lab yes there is Irma bracket management coming um

56:56

and a few a few other things as well um so with that yeah I mean just to

57:02

summarize it this been a really great kind of high level review about thinking about clients about getting them in the

57:07

right mindset helping you understand helping them understand you know what you're after or what you're about which

57:13

is again that helping people live you know the life that they're eligible for

57:18

that they that they uh that they can afford um and and focusing on that

57:24

question of you know what can I spend and what would change that what would the changes look like how do I spend how

57:30

do I take money from different accounts to be um tax efficient should I do Roth

57:35

conversions and so on and I think the example is a really good one because this is somebody who is sophisticated

57:41

financially um even was a you know self-directed um do-it-yourselfer um at

57:48

least for some time in pre-retirement but recognize that actually retirement is a it's a different ball game and it

57:54

needs different tools um you know obviously I'm biased as someone who is uh deeply uh in the retirement income

58:00

planning world but I really think this is an area where there's so much value to be added to a client's life um and

58:08

it's a place where specializing in this um as this example shows is it actually

58:14

is is just a great way to to earn business and a great way to um to have a positive impact on the world so love the

58:21

examples thank you so much Jason um and thank you everyone for for joining us

58:26

yes hopefully uh you've all been able to um learn some things in these sessions

58:31

uh we will be doing more Master Class Type uh events in the future um and I'm

58:38

going to start the poll

58:43

here so that people can

58:48

uh answer those questions with the last couple minutes of our uh of our time

58:54

here so as you're doing that just uh yeah Echo Ashley's comments at the

58:59

beginning Jason thank you so much for your for your time thoughtfulness expertise um and willingness to share

59:06

with uh the community of advisers here um and um really appreciate it thank you

59:11

very much hey it's been a pleasure appreciate the invite and the involvement and uh yeah hopefully some

59:18

some great takeaways that you can put put to practice some sound bites some phraseology and it really is all about

59:26

it is about not jumping to solve the the

59:31

problem um you just want to identify that there is a problem from prospecting

59:37

perspective hone in on how relieving them of that problem would benefit their

59:46

lives and then ultimately how do we help them do that which is a very small

59:54

piece all right we'll leave this uh open for maybe a minute or two more to let

59:59

people uh answer and then there is the uh when I when I shut off the meeting you'll get uh a spot to put in any

1:00:06

information we need for your CE and uh I think that turns around within a couple

1:00:11

weeks so if you're waiting for that to hit your account uh but thank you everyone uh and we will see you again

1:00:17

very soon thank you