Ep 32: Are financial advisors gifting dummies? Featuring Joe Fischer

Episode 32 of Rethink Financial Advice, co-hosted by Derek Notman, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Couplr AI) and H. Adam Holt, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Asset-Map). (36:51)

Episode 32 of Rethink Financial Advice, co-hosted by Derek Notman, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Couplr AI) and H. Adam Holt, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Asset-Map). Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or Acast.

Episode Summary

Joe Fischer joins Adam Holt and Derek Notman to take apart a ritual almost every advisory firm performs without examining it: the holiday gift basket. Holt’s account of following up in January, only to be told repeatedly that clients never received the basket because office staff got to it first, sets up the argument that most client gifting is spend without effect. Fischer’s alternatives are cheap and specific. Say one concrete thing you admire about the person rather than sending an object. Send a half-birthday gift, on the reasoning that nobody else will be competing for attention that day. The idea with the most carryover is milestone gifting, meaning recognition at the moment a client actually accomplishes something the plan was built for, which the hosts note is usually marked with nothing better than a sheet cake.

What this episode covers

• Why holiday gift baskets frequently never reach the person they were sent to
• Naming one specific thing you admire as a higher-value alternative to an object
• Half-birthday gifting, and the logic of choosing an uncontested day
• Personalizing the packaging rather than branding the gift itself
• Building recognition around plan milestones instead of the calendar

Full Transcript

Machine-generated transcript of this episode.

Welcome to Rethink, the financial advisor podcast. My name is Adam Holt. And this is Derek Notman. We are your hosts, both veteran advisors and FinTech CEOs who challenge the status quo, question everything and have fun doing it. Hear honest commentary on the challenges facing advisors today. And be part of a community where we can all rethink the profession. Now on to our episode. Derek, are advisors gifting dummies? I can’t help but laugh just at the question, Adam. Doesn’t that make sense? You know what a gifting dummy is, right? I’m not quite sure what that really is, but I’m gonna try. All right, I’m gonna try.

As an advisor for a number of years now, like we’ve been told that you should recognize like your clients and show appreciation, right? Send them a gift. Now, some only let you send gifts for five bucks, but send a gift to show the appreciation. But I think the gift basket that they re-gift, that’s probably not cutting it anymore, right? Re-gifted basket. So I would say there’s probably a lot of dummies out there. They just don’t know it. I was one for sure until it was pointed out that I wasn’t, but why do you ask? Well, you know, it’s funny because it’s getting near that time of year when all the advisors I know start arranging for their top clients to start getting the gifting baskets, right?

And we’ve been subject to this too. We did the same thing. My team says, okay, are they getting a basket this year? I don’t even know what kind of basket they’re getting. All I know is that usually in January, when I talk to those clients that I sent those 30, 40, $50 gift baskets to probably chocolates and stuff like that, or dips and fig stuff that I don’t know if anybody actually eats, maybe that’s why they wind up in the gift basket and they charge us 50 bucks for it. You know, I asked them about it. They’re like, we never got it. You know why?

Because their staff ate it because it went into the pool of the cafeteria or kitchen area and everybody just took it home before the person who was supposed to get it got it. So I think that makes it dummies because I think we’re wasting money and we’re not actually getting the impact that we hope to achieve with it. I think you’re right. And you know what this brings to mind? A really funny example. I just watched this weekend, again, the classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Cool. And there’s a scene where Clark W. Griswold goes into his boss’s massive conference room with a gift. And he’s like, oh, we came up with something really thoughtful for you.

You look at all the gifts behind that came from everybody else. They’re the exact same gift, right? Total gifting dummy right there, you know? So like- Oh, I love that you said that people regift these gifts, but because it’s true, we get a lot of baskets at our office too, typically from financial services providers and they drop off something. Some people really do a great job and it’s memorable. I don’t know that I give them business because of it. Right, I would like to think that I don’t. Maybe it creates top of mind awareness, which I think is the intent. But the gifting dummies question came up from an interview that you had introduced to us that we did, which I was quite surprised at because Joe Fisher brought this up and we had met him through your network and he brought this question up.

So help us understand Joe because he brings up some interesting things I think will be invaluable for advisors to think about in this season. Yeah, it was really fun. I’ve actually done a little bit of work with him, which you’ll hear about in our conversation. And he’s got an interesting background. He always had this mindset he was gonna become a financial advisor and never ended up becoming one, but he does have a CPA and his CFA. He also worked at Bear Stearns and at Goldman Sachs. So he’s definitely had his, at least one foot in our industry or profession. Go back and listen to that other episode.

So he has a really insightful view into the work that we do. And after his time at Bear and Goldman, he did some entrepreneurial stuff, traveled the world, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, he’s been to 25 countries, pretty cool stuff. And we were kind of joking, but he’s probably climbing the mountain and realized that people are doing gifting all wrong. Joe, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we’re gonna just assume it is for purposes of this conversation. But what’s interesting is he actually founded a company all around better gifting and has actually helped over 100,000 customers now. So we wanted to have a really good chat with him looking from the outside in, like, how can advisors not be dummies when it comes to this stuff?

Because he’s helped so many, he’s learned things at scale that you and I could never learn from just gifting to our own book of business, if you will. So yeah, so we asked him, how do we deepen relationships, the work he’s doing? We got some really cool insights from him. Cool. Let’s hear what Joe had to say. Listen in this podcast on what you are doing that might be synonymous with a gifting dummy and what you can do better and what you could do easier in this year. I think you’ll find some really good tidbits. Let’s hear from Joe. What do you think’s the missing opportunity for advisors that they’re just not addressing right now or just don’t see coming?

Yeah, so the challenge that probably everyone sees coming, and maybe it’s one of those things that it’s just how much do we understand it is the compression of commissions, right? We’ve seen that in real estate. We’ve seen it all over the place. And I think that’s just one of those things that it’s so critical to not be complacent. And the opportunity that I think is there is aside from building relationships, I think is table stakes for a financial advisor. I think that is absolutely critical. If you don’t do that, you probably don’t have much of a business. But I think the hidden opportunity is building relationships with the next generation and doing that from day one.

Do your clients children? Do they know and trust you? If not, why not? Are you helping your client educate their children about the importance of financial planning and having a sound financial plan? If you think about it, your clients children, they’re the most important thing for most of them, right? They’re the most important thing in the world. And are you caught in a scenario where you’re merely helping them think about how to pay for college? Because your client is thinking about their children’s lives in so much greater depth than just a college bill. But I think most financial advisors think about that as the big milestone and then it just cut loose and gone.

And I think it’s easy, it’s simple and that’s a huge milestone, right? But as we all, as the three of us all know, we’ve been out of college for a long time. A lot of life happens after college. So I think that’s like the hidden opportunity that of all the financial advisors I’ve talked to, very few and very few can count on one hand are actively engaging that next generation from day one. It’s a really interesting perspective. And I would agree there, a lot of things do happen after college quite a bit. So to that end, then I think that this is a nice thread that we’re on.

What action steps then can advisors take to engage this next generation, right? What are some things that you are seeing given your position and just like for the advisors, listen, if you could knock them upside the head, hey, do this, people know. Yeah, and yeah, there’s three buckets that I think about just in general. And the first is what we call surprise and delight. And that’s it. Yes, it does include sending gifts that is part of it, but it’s really, it’s much bigger than that. It’s really about being intentional about building authentic relationships with your client. And that could be, that can take the form of many different ways, right?

It could be, it could happen through a gift. It could happen through a conversation. It could happen through just the care you take in providing the plan and listening to them and everything else. But it’s about stepping back and being smarter about how to implement that. Because unless you have, you know, unless you only have 20 clients, right? If you have 100, 150, 300 clients, some people have, right? You’re gonna have to build a system with intention in order to build these genuine relationships. And that might sound counterintuitive, but I assure you it’s not. Having a system in place to remember to check in with someone does not mean that when you check in with them, you’re any less genuine, thoughtful, caring, considerate than had you just randomly thought about it and left it up to chance.

We put our most important things on the calendar. And just so I think about it like that, like scheduling something doesn’t mean it’s not important. It means it’s so important. You want to make sure you don’t miss it. So that’s number one. A part of that, I would say the couple of more tactical things on the gifting side within that, I mentioned the client’s children, send them birthday gifts. Just that, just something that simple. I encourage them to do that. I actually got that idea from a financial advisor and he’s the most successful guy in the office. I won’t mention the other firm, but we would all know it.

And it was like, that’s a brilliant idea. And every person, everyone else I talked to in that office pointed to him as the guy who’s crushing it kind of thing. So that’s a really, it’s a really easy thing to do. And imagine if you’re, even when you’re like five years old, getting a birthday gift is just fun. It doesn’t matter who it’s from. And now you get into this and you almost become like uncle status by the time you’re 18 years old or something or the kid’s 18 years old. So that’s a neat one. And then just another thing. I think there’s always a really big opportunity to just be a little bit vulnerable and a little bit just like touching, thoughtful, authentic and just something like sending a note or a text.

I’m not talking about daily, weekly, monthly, even here, just sporadically, every once in a while. And if you did it once a year with all of your clients, it would be amazing. With just something like I’ve always admired blank about you, about that person. Like we, I guarantee we can all find something we admire about our clients or all of our financial advisors. We can find something they admire, something they like, something they really respect, whatever it is. Just pick one thing. You don’t have to write an article about it. Just pick one thing and mention it. That will change that person’s day. And it’s so easy to do.

So that’s another thing. And then lastly, this is a little bit of a silly one but I think that especially today, you need to consider zigging when other people are zagging and just do something a little bit different to stand out. I like telling people to send half birthday gifts instead of birthday gifts. And the reason is, do you know who else is sending half birthday gifts? No one, right? Not a single person. So you have one day where it’s only you that are getting a little bit of attention, a little bit of love, like making their day. And it’s just a ton of fun.

It’s like, you probably have to have the right personality for it. If you’re Mr. Three-piece suit and tie, it might not work for you. Yeah, let’s be honest, but it’s just fun. It’s just a lot of fun. And it gets some really great reactions and talk about, especially if it’s on the younger demographic side of things, to talk about social media, how much fun it is to be like, I got a hat, this is silly, this is fun, it’s super shareable. So that’s a really great one. And then the last bucket, I just think about this in general in so many industries, but I think it’s really apt here, is just try to get in your customer’s shoes as much as possible.

Don’t accept the status quo. Everything that you’re making your client do, I’m thinking especially any sort of heaps of paperwork or I need a wet-stick miniature on paper or any of that kind of stuff, that’s an opportunity to improve the experience, to retain a customer, to get that next one in. And I think that’s like as an individual financial advisor, will you be able to solve that problem? Probably not. There’s probably levels of bureaucracy, but you can shine a light on it. You can take a step and shine a light and try to make the customer’s experience better. Some of the things you’ve said are they hit home.

And I think for all of us as business owners, we do have relationships we need to support. And pretty much everything you said is stuff that our parents taught us to do. Write a card, stay in touch with the people you care about, be intentional about it, send a gift, don’t show up empty-handed. But I’m curious why you think financial planners and financial advisors are not doing this? Why are they not executing? Is that something you’ve solved with Greedible? Yeah, yeah, so that’s a good question. A lot of them certainly are. And just because you’re doing it, just because you’re doing the action doesn’t necessarily mean you’re hitting the mark.

Certainly a lot of people are. And it’s interesting, I’ve had a number of conversations where someone says, I do this myself or I do it in-house or something like that. And I just chuckle because what does that person say when they talk to a prospective client and they say, oh, I’m taking care of my financial planning myself. They’d be like, hey, are you an expert at this? Do you really, do you think about this 24 seven for 10 years? Because that’s what I do. And that’s why I’m here to help. So flip that back around. Are you an expert on gifting? Are you an expert on client relations?

Like all of that kind of stuff. Picking something, packing it, shipping it, all of that kind of stuff. That’s what we think about all day, every day. And we’ve worked with thousands and thousands of customers at this point. So we know a thing or two. So when I say half birthday gifts that you might chuckle and say, that’s crazy. I know that works for the right person. Again, it might not be right for every advisor out there, but for the right person, they’re gonna get a huge return on that investment. What’s really interesting to that point is, as advisors, as you said, we expect our customers to work with the experts.

So we should do the same. We should outsource that stuff. But what’s cool is that through the work you’ve done, you believe if I read the script that you’ve already experienced this at a level of like hundreds of thousands of people. Oh yes, yeah. Hundreds of thousands of customers at this point. So your data, you probably won’t give the data out, but your data has got to give you some really brilliant insights onto what works, when it works, why it works, or if it doesn’t. An advisor would never be able to do that on their own, or if they did, it would take years. They would just have to go start another company virtually.

So it’s like just tap into someone who’s already done it and learned. So I think that’s really cool. And we’re not, I’m not someone who thinks that every gift someone needs to send needs to be greetable every single time. I’m not delusional. I think we have an amazing solution that solves a lot of problems, but handwritten notes are great. A bottle of wine is great. Some people do pies at various times of the year, whatever. I would argue that, hey, if you’re dropping a pie off at Thanksgiving, unless they’re counting on that pie for dinner, like maybe that pie gets lost in the shuffle a little bit, you know what I mean?

Because there’s a lot of other stuff going on, whatever. So people don’t necessarily think about that. A lot of times they put themselves first, I think, in like unintentionally, not maliciously, but they like convince themselves that they’re doing it for them when it’s really like the thing that they like to do. Ah, you mean giving the gift that they would like to receive? That or just the act, like getting the attention of doing that, like some people drop pies off at certain times, whatever, or drop cookies off, and when you’re getting gathering at the Thanksgiving table with your family or preparing for that day, is that really when you want someone to come to your home and present you and disrupt your day and stuff?

It’s not, but they’re getting to make a fuss about it a little bit and look what we did and it was so cool. And again, I don’t think it’s intentional. It’s not intentionally malicious or anything, but I think sometimes it’s subtle and it works its way into being more about the gifter than the recipient. I would almost say that’s a little bit of controversy right there. Some genuine reason for actually giving the gift instead of just trying to get attention or the next sale, because it doesn’t sound like you’re saying gift to get that next sale or whatever so much is just to build a really meaningful relationship.

And by virtue of doing that authentically and genuinely, you’ll get the best return on that investment. And if you want controversy, please don’t think that crappy gift basket or that tin of popcorn that you sent to the holidays with when their office is full of gifts of just like that, don’t think that you’re making any relationships. You’re not building the relationship then. We do a lot of holiday gifts. I love that people send holiday gifts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great. But if you’re really trying to stand out and break through the clutter, sending the gift at the same time everyone else is doing it is not going to make that happen.

It’s just not. And I think there’s another thing that and I’ve heard individuals complain because now every time I talk to someone who’s your financial advisor or how do you like, but like I’m just interested. I’m so interested and engaged in it. And one of the things I’ve heard is like, oh, we don’t send gifts. We do events, right? That’s one thing financial advisors might say. We don’t send you gifts, we do events. And it’s funny to me because I’ve heard more people complain about feeling obligated to go to this event than I’ve heard them complaining about receiving a nice gift from them. And I think that it’s the same thing.

We like to think we’re doing it for the other people but it’s actually become this event that we’re excited about hosting and then we’re in the limelight and all of this kind of stuff. So I think I would challenge you unless your client is like, cannot wait to do this thing. They’re a big horse racing fan and you’re taking them to Derby. So it’s something like that. Unless it’s that, you might just be getting attendance because they feel obligated. And that’s a worst case scenario there because then you’re actually stealing their most valuable asset, their time. So I would just pump the brakes on that and just try to be really intellectually honest.

Is it something they can’t wait to get to? And if it’s a client wide event, the chances that all of your clients are that into the same thing is just minuscule, right? It’s just minuscule unless you’re a hyper niche advisor. What is Greedible? What’s the pain it’s solving and what’s its superpower? Yeah, the really Greedible specializes in the kind of cross-section of convenience and personalization. So it’s really easy to get out the door. Price point is very approachable, usually in the $30 range or so, and depending on what’s inside. And it makes this impression because it’s this really surprising and delightful unboxing, super personalized, feels like you spent waiting more than that on it.

And it just leaves the recipient like ready, basically ready to send a text saying, hey, this is the coolest thing I’ve gotten. Like we hear a lot of that kind of stuff. So really, it’s really easy personalized gifts. When you say personalized, are you saying you’re gonna get Adam’s name on the cup or you’re saying personalized, it’s thoughtful to your interests as opposed to the gifters interests with their logo on it. Good, that’s a great point. We have this patented card that folds up into a box. So that can be personalized with a message and three images, photos or logos or things like that in there.

So the gift inside will not be, we have champagne gummy bears or nice candles or chocolates, that kind of stuff. That will not be, you won’t have a logo or anything on that, but the full package will be very personalized because of the design. Yeah, I just used them Adam. I sent something to my top client. It was so easy. So I was able to type my own personalized message and select the appropriate gift. And then I get all the updates. Hey, it’s been processed. Hey, it’s been shipped. Hey, it was received, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Super easy. Very cool. Yeah, Derek can do it, right?

Let’s be honest here. Derek is pretty capable, I’ll be honest with you. Very cool. So that was our conversation with Joe Fisher from Greedable. That was, it was kind of funny. I had a lot of smirks during that program. What about you? I enjoyed it. It was good, especially the backhanded compliment at the end there. Oh, I had to keep that one in there, you know? Anything that lets us laugh at each other. We got to do it. Well, you have to. No, it was good. He’s got some really interesting insights that I think a lot of advisors in our profession just wouldn’t be able to have.

I thought it was a fun conversation. What are some takeaways or thoughts that you had based on what he was saying? Well, you know, he went so fast. We had the luxury of hearing it more than once everybody. So we thought we’d take some time to give you our takeaways as we try to do. So there’s a couple of things I thought that were really valuable there. I thought that the doing something for next generation of your clients made a lot of sense. I mean, that seems so obvious. Do you remember that commercial that was going around from one of the big wirehouses? The guy stands up and the groom says, I want to thank this guy, Joe.

And it was, he’s my financial advisor, my dad’s financial advisor who got us here. He was part of the family. And that’s the image I had, which was you can be the uncle or the aunt or whatever it might be that talks about how you’re connected because the kid remembers you. So I thought that made a lot of sense. Just gift, if you’re going to gift, don’t take that same money and gift it to the kids. That would be really memorable. Probably the kid will keep it a long time. All the stuff we step on in our houses would be from our financial advisor. And I think that would be, and by the way, they’re likely to be your next client.

When we think about and talk about succession in so many of our podcasts and what’s the next generation going to look like, there’s a reason why over 90% of the next generation leaves the advisor when their parents pass or lose their capacity. It’s because they don’t have a relationship with the advisor. Why not start when they’re young? I thought that was really fun to talk about sending half birthdays. I thought that was pretty fun. That was pretty authentic. And I thought that was definitely memorable. I have heard that one before. I thought that events has been interesting. I think especially post COVID with all the sensitivities, people want to come, don’t want to come.

They’re nervous. They don’t want a mask. And I think it’s getting harder to get people physically together since so many people have moved around. So I think events have been challenging. Although I have seen some success in virtual events, even virtual events where you can bring. We do something actually at AssetMap, Derek, where we have a happy hour once a month where we hire Airbnb does this program. This is not an endorsement for them, but we’ve had, we’ve gotten everybody together for origami from a guy in Japan who’s teaching us how to do origami. And then flamenco dancing in Spain and we did chocolate making from Jamaica.

So there’s lots of things that you can do. How cool is that? Yeah, right. And everybody joined with their beer or wine and we did a virtual session. Did your clients? Clients would eat that up. Love it. It was great. Worked out great. You guys ever do any like taco making classes? Haven’t done that one yet. We did a cookbook though, where we invited everybody. We said, send us all your recipes. So why couldn’t we do a client cookbook, have all your clients send you a recipe, family recipe, and you have it published. We had it published for 35 bucks a piece and we sent it to everybody.

So you get a collection of recipes as being part of this community. Isn’t that cool? I love it. What’s even cooler is that this wasn’t on your list right now. And do you know what my recipe was? What was your recipe? It was tacos. Just to let you know. I hope they were kosher tacos. They were not. Well, I can’t say they’re kosher tacos. Not kosher, but I would tell you it had cheese and meat in it. So there you have it. I think the other things I thought were really good. I’d love to hear what you took away from it. I thought it was pretty funny that talked about the old gift basket and how it gets re-eaten or the tin of popcorn.

We have done that one. Oh, I’ve done that one too. I have. I do like that popcorn. I will be honest with you. All of the flavors, right? It’s the cheese, it’s the caramel and then it’s like the regular, right? Chicago style, like the cheese and the caramel mixed together. Yes. I can eat that whole tin myself, by the way. I have done it. I will admit to you. And the last takeaway I think that’s valuable, I thought was there is sometimes this idea that if I schedule it, it’s not authentic. But the reality is, is that if you schedule it is important and what’s important actually gets scheduled.

I thought that was a great statement. It reminded me to rethink about how I am being intentional about reach outs. And I have some ideas on that. We can maybe, if we have time, we’ll talk about it. So I thought that was really great. And of course, just be authentic. I thought that was a really important aspect. What about you? What did you take away from this program? I don’t have the same number that you do here, Adam, but to your tin of popcorn one, I think that if you’re gonna do that, don’t send it at Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever. Send it at a different time of year like he was pointing out.

Send it like an off times of the year. You know what I mean? Yeah. You mean like New Year’s, like after you make your resolution to lose a lot of weight, that’s when you should send the popcorn. Right. You haven’t done your New Year’s resolutions just yet before you commit. I want you to gorg yourself on this tin of popcorn. Let me show you how supportive I am for your goals. Trust me, I do support you, but I want you to eat this first. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. Right. You’re welcome. Well, I guess that’s being intentional, which is in all seriousness, being intentional is really important and being more strategic about it, like you were saying.

Don’t just do it haphazardly. Schedule it. Why are you doing this gifting things? What is the whole point of it? What are you trying to accomplish? And I liked his controversial comments about, hey, if you’re scheduling an event, it really ends up just being for you. It’s not for your clients so much. It’s more of an ego thing. Like the advisor needs to take themselves out of the equation entirely. Be altruistic with it. And if something comes back to you, that good stuff will happen. Just don’t, yeah, I don’t know. It’s not the advisor show at this point. We’re showing gratitude here. I liked his idea about sending birthday gifts to client kids.

We talked about this. Building the next generation of relationships. Extremely important. And showing your clients that you admire them. Okay, like I really like that you’re able to do this. Or I thought that that is something outside of the realm of like just investment management or insurance or just general clinical conversations. If you’re truly getting to know your clients and you should be able to tell them things that you admire. I think that’s really important. And a small plug for greetable here, but outsource this stuff. Once you’ve come up with your strategic plan, why you want a gift when you’re gonna do it, you’re never gonna be able to scale it or have the data points to know how to best do it compared to someone who else is doing it.

And if we’re asking our clients to outsource their investment, their insurance, their financial planning, all that stuff, we should probably take a page from our own book and outsource things that we need help with. You know what I mean? That’s true. You know, it’s funny because I remember, and Joe, for those that are paying attention to this, we didn’t ask him to do this, but Joe offered in follow-up, he said that he would give a 10% coupon to all of our listeners. So we’ll put that in the show notes. So thanks Joe for that. That was really cool. You just said something that I really think is valuable.

And when all of us as advisors communicate something authentic, I think we miss a moment to also congratulate people on taking the action that we’ve asked them to take as our clients. In other words, congratulations, Derek. I’m really proud that you’ve been able to follow the path and get into a systematic way of savings and not waste money in dumb things. And you’ve done the hard work. Why couldn’t we actually kill two birds with one stone here and actually show our authentic appreciation by giving them credit for the things that they’re doing in this coaching relationship? I love that idea. I have, and something just comes to mind.

I actually had a client review meeting today and I remember the last time we had a conversation about like they had transitioned to retirement and she actually broke into tears, like happy tears, because for all the years we’ve been working together in the planning we did, they were able to accomplish something that was really important, right? So what a great opportunity to send a gift to recognize that, because no one else is saying that other than maybe like the sheet cake that they get at the office as they’re going away party, like, hey, you’re old and retired. Here’s a piece of cake from the grocery store.

Goodbye. Do something a little bit more thoughtful. Well, that’s a great idea. So what we’re saying, what about sending a gift that has something to do with supporting something that they really care about at a milestone? Congratulations, Derek. You just crossed this net worth milestone. I know it was a big moment and so I’m sending you this thing. And I mean, it’s awesome. Really has nothing to do with the holidays, right? And their birthday and or half birthdays. What can we do something like that? Can we actually establish milestones where we’re going to give them accolade or recognition? It doesn’t have to be expensive. It could be as little as a text, but I think that changes us from being gifting dummies to aligned with, we want to reward the kinds of behavior we want to continue, right?

Not just because you’re alive on Christmas or not just because it’s your birthday and you’re still here with us. I think we can align our intentional merit with real things that deserve it. And that should be aligned with how we help them achieve those things so that it doesn’t lose all votes. I don’t know, that’s what I take away. Well, the example I used in our chat with him, I sent a gift to my best client, my top client, and it was thanking them because it was our anniversary when we started working together. There you go. Right? No one else is sending him that one and it’s just like being totally grateful and showing them that I appreciate that relationship and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I mean, again, yeah, anyways. I guarantee their other advisor did not also send them because they’re probably cheating on you with two advisors, right? Most of them are. That could be a whole episode. Are your clients cheating on you? Yeah, right. Why is your allocation all messed up? Well, because I didn’t tell you I have this money with this other guy. It was totally risky. Anyway, that’s great. Let’s jump into our community question. Thank you, Joe. That was fun. You made us laugh many times and I think that’s really cool what you’re doing and we appreciate your effort with Greedable. This one came in.

Are you ready for this, Derek? I want to hear it, let’s go. All right, here you go. So this came in from Mitch in New York City, a LinkedIn direct message. So remember that you can message us through Rethink the Financial Advisor podcast on LinkedIn or just directly. He writes, a recent argument with one of my wirehouse buddies got stuck on this topic of fiduciary and we debated whether RAs or wirehouses are better for clients. Can you guys have a good debate on this so we can finally settle it? Mitch, New York City, thank you. What do you think? It’s circumstantial, isn’t it? I think it is.

I don’t think it’s black or white. Was actually having an interesting conversation with Dr. Megan Lertz, if you don’t know her, she’s a follower, but about this very thing and it isn’t black or white and I think there’s a lot of hyperbole around it and that if you’re not one in particular, then you’re like bad. However, there are examples and if you’ll let me digress a second, I can give you one. Yeah, go for it. I have a client reach out to me today and they sent me and there’s a LinkedIn post in this. You can go read the details, but essentially they were sold another product by a non-RIA type of advisor, okay?

And not that there’s anything wrong with insurance-based advisors or agents. There’s definitely a need for those products, but the problem was is that there was no process. They were sold something they ended up realizing they didn’t need and were never given any alternatives to think about. There was no financial planning or comprehensive analysis done. It’s like going to the bank. Hey, your CD’s come and do, let’s get you a new one. And there was nothing else there. So I think when you look at a situation like that, I think the fiduciary wins every single day of the week. I know there’s this best interest stuff going on.

So I don’t know. I think better for clients, I would say that it is circumstantial depending on your needs and there’s not one size fits all, but I think that no matter whether you’re an RIA, a wirehouse, insurance, BD, whatever, there are bad apples and there are ways you can screw your clients being all of those types of advisors. Yeah. You know what the funny thing is about this? The whole question of fiduciary, ironically, everyone keeps coming back to the same single point of contention, which is compensation. When the reality is fiduciary is about process, it’s not about compensation. The presumption is that if you’re compensated in a way that will justify an impure process or a biased process, then therefore you can’t really be a fiduciary.

But I know plenty of commissionable advisors who take people through a prudent process that results in a suitable action. They’re not really incentivized to do one thing. Both could have a process that justifies why they’re acting at a fiduciary. And also some could not follow a process that means they’re not acting a fiduciary. I know way too many RIAs and wirehouses that don’t ask any questions about legal, tax, or insurance. Are they being a fiduciary? I don’t know. That’s a tough one, because then the definition of fiduciary is even in question then. Yes, agreed. So is the fiduciary question just about investment management? Or is it about holistic life decisions for where there’s clearly dependencies?

This decision impacts that decision, begets that, begets that. It’s like a book from the Bible. And the bottom line is that if you don’t understand those dependencies, how can you actually act in a client’s best interest? I don’t know. So the irony behind the question, Mitch, is that I don’t know whether RIAs can claim perfect, that they are a perfect fiduciary because they’ve got a process. No, it just says we understand how they get compensated. Whereas wirehouses tend to be mostly asset gatherer, salary compensated individuals. And so the argument is, I’m a big believer, I think as you are, that you’ve got to be holistic from day one.

You got to recognize you don’t know everything, which means you must be able to bring in other people to validate and verify the decisions you’re helping people make, even if they’re outside of your core expertise, which means at the end of the day, the only way to be a true fiduciary is to not be alone. That’s what I happen to think. Ooh, that’s good. That’s good. I would agree with you on that one. I remember my early days, I looked at it as if, man, if I don’t know the answer to this question, if I have to bring somebody else in, I’ve just diminished my own value and I might lose the sale or not get the client.

I’m like, that’s not true at all, man. Like double down on getting other resources and getting other experts around you. That’s ego bomb again. That’s selfishness. Remember that, ego bomb. Yeah, it totally is. Look at the best entrepreneurs. They always, what’s the quote? You have to be the dumbest one in the room basically, right? You want to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. Yeah. I don’t think it’s anything different than what Joe brought up. You want to do something right. Go to an expert or learn from an expert or do the research and build a process around it. There’s no substitute for it.

There’s no shortcuts at the end of the day. Do you want to do what’s right for your clients? Sometimes you got to bring in other expertise or just make sure you know more than everybody and you’ve done the due diligence, which of course I don’t have anybody has time for that anymore. Michael Kitsis, he’s got enough degrees for all of us. I think somehow he has enough time to get 18 different designations. I don’t think he sleeps. He probably doesn’t. So anyway, this has been fun. So I look forward, this is a bit of a tee up because we actually have another podcast coming immediately follow this one.

So make sure you pay attention to that one when it comes out or you just listen to it because we have brought someone who had just a real interesting and passionate belief around this and we’ll bring up some controversy. We’re excited to have him. With that, Derek, it’s always a pleasure seeing you. I will see you very soon on the road. Yes, I can’t wait in a different time zone. It should be fun. Lots of dad jokes to ensue. I’ve never seen a session where you get CE credit for dad jokes, but here we go. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do it. But in the meantime, everyone, thanks for listening.

Please make sure to subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast with somebody, anybody and follow us on LinkedIn. If you have questions, like we’re open books, send us a question and there’s a link on our Rethink podcast page on LinkedIn or you can even apply to be a guest on the show. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be picked. We’ll see. Right. But until then, think about great dad jokes. That’s right. That’s our gift to you. Should I end it with one? Go for it. Yes, Derek. Let’s see. What do you call a cold crocodile? What did you call? Cold crocodile. A refrigerator. Oh, that’s a good one.

I’ll use that with nobody today. So dumb. So dumb. Thanks Derek. All the best. Thank you for listening to Rethink, the financial advisor podcast with Holt and Notman. Be sure to subscribe now and join the ongoing conversation. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of AssetMap or Connector. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only.