Ep 65: The Evolution of Financial Education Featuring George Nichols III

Episode 65 of Rethink Financial Advice, co-hosted by Derek Notman, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Couplr AI) and H. Adam Holt, CFP® (Founder & CEO, Asset-Map). (46:50)

Episode 65 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

George Nichols III joins Adam Holt and Derek Notman to describe how the institution that trained much of the profession is changing. Nichols leads The American College of Financial Services, founded in 1927, which both hosts attended and describe as hallowed ground, and his account is of an almost century-old college behaving like a startup. The problem he keeps returning to is recruiting. Advisory is a growing field with an average practitioner age in the mid-fifties, which means a large number of openings ahead, but the commission and incentive structure asks a new entrant to accept uncertainty that a salaried alternative does not. His counterweight is a discovery habit that works on clients and recruits alike: establish what someone wants to reach, then find out why, because almost everyone has a reason underneath the number.

What this episode covers

• How a nearly hundred-year-old educational institution is restructuring itself
• The recruiting problem created by commission-based entry compensation
• What an ageing practitioner base means for openings over the next decade
• Establishing the why behind a stated financial goal, for clients and recruits alike
• The wealth transfer, and why inheritors rarely keep their parents’ advisor

Full Transcript

Machine-generated transcript of this episode.

Welcome to Rethink, the financial advisor podcast. My name is Adam Holtz. 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. Adam, why are you an alumni of the American College of Financial Services? Because that’s where I got my CFP and that’s where every mentor and peer I ever knew went to go get their financial education. Actually, they’re right here in Philadelphia. Why do you- That’s right.

They’re in your backyard, aren’t they? Yeah, that was like, it was literally like hollowed ground where I remember going. My mentor brought me 25 years ago to an event at American College. It was amazing because, Derek, every single company was represented there. Wasn’t just our company at the time. It was a melting pot and it was high brow. I mean, I remember going back to Bryn Mawr where it originally was and it was like, wow, this is serious. There’s an actual financial services college that gives degrees. They even have a doctoral degree and a master’s degree in financial services. So why do you ask? Well, so they have insights to our industry and profession, unlike probably any other organization, company.

I mean, they represent upwards of 95% of all insurance and wealth firms in our country. Wow. Yeah, again, as you are, I am also an alumni. I have been since a long time. I got my LUTCF. That’s how long I’ve been around. And so they’re doing some really cool things. You’re right. It is hallowed ground for sure. But because of what they’re seeing, they’re starting to make some interesting changes and they’ve been around for almost a hundred years. 1927. Wow. But they’re almost acting like a startup a little bit, which is cool. When you think about like pivoting and being a little more nimble. And this is why we’re bringing on George Nichols, our special guest today, is that really interested to see where they’re going and what they’re seeing.

It’s interesting they moved. I had an opportunity to do some of their programming, I guess maybe six months ago, they were doing an educational program where they’re providing CE to all of their constituents and go and listen to it. And I was lucky enough to get asked to do this. And I was so impressed with their operation, how modern it is and how much value they’re still bringing, especially in this post pandemic world where you can’t really go on site. They’re educating tens of thousands of advisors every single year. And they’ve even started to dabble in consumer. And I think this is really interesting what George brought to the table.

Help those of us that don’t know George, who is George Nichols? So George Nichols, the third, by the way, really cool dude, dad, hopefully he’s gonna be one of our rebel dads here at one point, right? He’s just a super great guy, really fun to chat with, but he’s currently the president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services. But interesting past, he was an executive VP at New York Life for a long time, which is actually where I met him initially and saw him talk. He’s been very active. IPAPAC, it’s the more of the political side and helping with our industry and being on Capitol Hill.

And also some really cool things is that he was the first African-American president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and also Kentucky’s first African-American insurance commissioner, which is really cool. He’s definitely been a trailblazer in the work that he’s doing. And that’s what’s so cool is just now he’s at the helm of an amazing organization that’s reached so many advisors and continues to do so. That’s what we wanted to bring them on. What are they seeing? What are they doing? Yeah, I thought this was really revealing. And nothing else, just his energy is great and just great laughing. And so I hope you all enjoy this.

Let’s listen to here, George. George, thank you so much for taking the time to spend time with us in the community here. We’re curious, what’s your unique perspective of the advice market today? It’s disappointing that I say this, but I believe that there are still many advisors who are failing to really meet what the client needs and wants. They’re promoting what they sell. They’re promoting what they’re incentivized to sell, where they get paid. And I fully get that. But when I look at the stats, there was a research that was out by Herbers & Company that said 90% of the people have an advisor want tax advice and only 74% of the firms provide it.

When they say they want retirement advice, their retirement advice that most advisors give is very limited. And so I think that we’ve got to do a better job as advisors in actually paying attention to what clients want and need. As I was talking to Derek about this, my view is that if you are affiliated or work for a particular firm, you’re usually promoting what they have to offer. And I get that. But this isn’t always what your client may need. And when you look at people that have $250,000 or more in assets, they’re probably getting a little bit more in need of broader financial services needs.

And I just don’t think we do that well. So that’s the first thing. And the second thing is that I’m seeing a trend where the more successful advisors are those who have specialized. I don’t, when someone says to me, I got a CFP or CHFC, you know what I say to them, great, you got the table stakes. Well, what’s next? Do you specialize in something? Because everybody’s worried about retirement, you specialize in that. Everybody’s worried about estate planning. I think all of us are gonna have to start thinking about disability, not disability insurance, but the fact that my father had Alzheimer’s and I got to rethink my financial picture.

If something happens to one of my kids, those things are gonna change the way mental health is going to drive that. So when I start looking at this, it’s like, can we really understand what our clients need? And then our advisors, I think are gonna be more successful if they specialize in something on top of being able to offer the comprehensive financial planning. And then the third would be, how good are you at participating or building a team? Because even whether you specialize or not, none of us know everything. And you serve your client better if you can bring people to the table that you trust, that they can trust through you and they can get all the other needs.

With the fact that my father did have Alzheimer’s, we then had to go get an attorney that specialized in that to come in. Was it the right person that fit my personality? And I spent more time on that because I had to worry about what happens if I die before my father. So you’ve got to be able to build a team or be a part of the team when you’re really thinking about meeting what a client’s needs are. Thank you, George. It’s really interesting, given that you’re, well, you’ve had a really interesting career and I’ve had a lot of experience and now in your role at the American college, I mean, I think you said, you guys have relationships with about what?

Maybe 95% of the advisor community nationally. So knowing that in your perspective, what would you say is an upcoming challenge or maybe a missing opportunity that advisors simply aren’t addressing? In addition to some of the things you just said, I mean, maybe there’s one you just want to like elaborate on a little bit more. Well, actually, there is one that I think the advisor community is, first of all, I got to believe they know. So, you know, someone’s going to hear this and say, duh, but I’m going to say it anyway, because when I talk to people, some of them start writing it down as if it’s something new, which scares me.

I think it’s this transfer of wealth. So here’s the numbers. There’s going to be about 30 trillion with a T dollars transferred to women by 2030, 30 trillion dollars, which now is getting close to the US GDP, 30 trillion dollars is going to be under the control of women. There’s another stat that says most women change advisors, 80% of them change advisors in the first year because you’ve disregarded them in the relationship because you talk to the husband or you disregarded them or you wanted to help them and tell them what they didn’t know. But now imagine that 30 trillion dollars that is under your control today because you’re dealing with George and you’ve been disrespectful to CJ.

And that money’s going to move. And for the firms that have figured that out and in saying, how do we not, oh, how do you sell and take care of women, but do we understand what women need and how is it different and how we’ve served previously? That’s a different question than I think they’re going to be successful. I’m blown away when I say that and they’re like, well, I didn’t know that number, but that’s real. And it’s a short period of time. We talk about we help in the future, but now let’s talk about into the future. In the next 20 years, we’re going to transfer another 20, 30 trillion dollars to millennials because I’m going to die.

So my three kids, my three adult kids are going to do well financially because of what we transfer as we die. Well, my kids have a different expectation than what I had at their age. They’re also going to have a lot of money at their age versus what I had. And everybody said, well, I got to go hire next gen advisors. Well, this is not about next gen advisors. This is about, have you really begun to understand who your clients are? What is the nuances and uniqueness of those clients? And then how are you going to serve them? And so that’s the first thing I struggle with that no one is paying attention to all this money movement that’s getting ready to happen.

Everybody was excited about the money movement that’s going to go country for retiring. There’s a bigger one that’s coming down the path. And then the last part of this that I think I struggle with is that, you know, and I’ll get into this. I want to get into this in a little bit later, but my kids grew up in a different environment. Rich white kids grew up in a different environment. And so eventually this, whatever you want to call it, DE and I, wokeism, call it whatever the hell you want, okay? These folks grew up differently. They’re less segregated. They’re more integrated with each other.

They are willing to accept gays and lesbians that are around them. They’re willing to accept transgenders. And so the full culture of what we’re thinking about, which has been traditional in a male dominated environment of how money is, that is getting ready to change. And I just think companies have to change. And where I have companies that say, well, we do really good recruiting women. Well, my next question is, well, how many of them are in leadership? Then the number gets really smaller. Well, then don’t really tell me you’re ready. That would be my response. That’s a great point. So many of us who have been in practice for a good number of years, I’m 25 years myself, and I’ll try to rethink whether we’re doing the right things.

And of course, struggling, because so much of the existing business and revenue associated with has been from what we did in the past. And you can always do, and you keep doing what you always do to get what you always got. And that is really, I think we’re finally faced with a question that actually might not be true coming down the pike, and certainly as our boomer clients who have a lot of capital moving. I’m curious what, you’re actually running a massive organization that has so many influences into the outlook of advisors, and certainly educational programs you continue to develop at American College. What are the action steps you think that we should recommend taking now, or for us to rethink?

Yeah, well, I think, so let’s start with our ability to recruit and retain. Because when I look at most recent statistics, we’re still saying that financial services advisory is a growing field. That’s a good thing. So, and when you look at the average age, which is probably 53, 54, somewhere in there, you’re gonna get people eventually over the next five, 10 years about to retire and transition out. So there’s all these openings and opportunities, and that’s great. But I think we’re gonna have to think about the commission and incentive structure, because I think my kids would do great in sales, and they’re like, wait a minute, guys.

So how does this work, and how am I gonna get paid? Okay, and, oh, dad, I just want you to get this job done. You’re making 60 starting and 70 starting, and I don’t have to do all that, and I don’t have to get used to no, I don’t have to get into that. And so I think that we’re gonna have to, we’ve been saying it for years, and we gotta rethink the commission structure and the fee structure, but we really haven’t. And I think we’re gonna have to with the new groups coming through. So I think that’s probably the first thing that I would say.

And I think that in addition to the incentive structure, I think we have to, it’s almost like we have to lay out what your life is like as a certain type of advisor. It’s your life work. Well, what is it if I’m just doing, I’m in the insurance space, or I’m in the investment space, or I’m in a mutual fund space, or I really wanna be broad, I’m doing wealth management. What does that advisor model look like so that I can say I wanna be an advisor? Which one of those fits me? Which one fits my personality? And then, I know I gotta start from the bottom, but I know where I’m working toward, and then your mentors, the American college, can put the right package around you to get you where you need to be at from a competency standpoint and a skill and knowledge standpoint.

So I think that’s another one that I think is really important. And if we don’t do those two things, I think we’re gonna have actually a harder time recruiting and retaining. Right now, our hard part about recruiting and retaining is we find them and we can’t keep them. Well, okay. If we’re able to find, well, now we gotta work on keeping them. And it’s a better deal that they’re not really understanding this and they don’t even look our way. And I also believe that if we do that well, Derek was sharing with me what he used to do and what he does now. I actually think what he does now, he’s gonna be better at because of what he went through when he was on the other side as an advisor, because it’s still adjacency to what he’s doing.

That’s exciting. And now we can really talk career development and my life’s work, which is sort of something that we try to promote at the American college. You know, George, all of that resonates so much. I’m starting to pull out a theme from what you’re saying here and that we have this situation, this transformation, I think you said, where we’re going to more of a, really a client-driven experience all the way around. And we have to really lean into that, but even deeper, like personalization, demographics, these are all things that are becoming so much more important, both at a firm level and at an individual level, because we have this like, the whole process of advice, planning, investing, whatever you wanna call it, is really shifting.

So it’s just cool to hear you say that given your perspective. Adam and I have had many conversations around this and it’s just, it’s validation. This is what’s happening. It is, and I’ll tell you that you all are having a conversation. I think there’s a lot of other people having a conversation, but the financial services industry as a whole, whether you’re looking at the advisor side or even on the manufacturing and product side, we evolve very slowly. That’s true. I think that’s what’s happening, but the thing that I’m seeing is we may be evolving slowly, but the marketplace is not. The marketplace is evolving quickly.

Just think about, everybody talks about whether there was appropriate oversight or not on Silicon Valley Bank. You know what was the most amazing thing to me? Is being able to move billions of dollars on my phone. That was what was amazing to me. And that when I talked to my kids and they’re saying like, you know, dad, I need this or that, first thing they said, and I’ll Venmo you. And I’m like, well, your daddy don’t take Venmo. And they said, well, I can’t pay you. And I said, well, then I can’t give you no money. But we’re like, it’s a different world. But they are moving down that space that’s totally different.

So what’s happening is we as an industry, we’re gonna have to speed up to do this to meet what those customer needs are because they are totally different. I’ll tell you a quick story. We were working on my, my wife and I were working on our state plan. It was about 10 years ago. And we went in and we brought the kids in and I told the kids how much money we were leaving. And my advisor said, are you sure you wanna do that? And I said, I don’t think you’re gonna kill us. I said, but the point is I don’t want them dealing with our debt and then finding the shock of how much money we’re leaving.

Whether it’s more than they thought or less than they thought. I don’t want them to deal with it. I just want them to deal with the loss. And then everything is set up while they mourn and then they could just step right into it. And I want them involved in it now while we’re alive. So it went really well. So we’re leaving and we were down in Florida and we said, let’s get some bikes. And we went riding around on bikes, around by the beaches and stuff. And Chuck said, hey dad, are we all done? Do we have to keep him? And I said, well, no, why?

He’d be a great granddaddy, but he’s not gonna be my advisor. Oh, you’re advising me. Wow. Think about it. That’s why I’m thinking of this transfer. That’s 10 years ago. That’s not what we’re… I’m sitting here telling you all this wealth transfer. I wasn’t thinking about this 10 years ago. I was just thinking my kids didn’t like this old man. But no, it’s just a different… And then I would tell you, so I told him and he hired a young person, but it’s a young person that doesn’t know much. And my kids do live in a family where the father is head of a financial service college.

So we talk about a lot. My kids know more than these new people coming into business just because you wanted a young person. Very interesting. We’ve heard this theme a bunch of times, a bunch of times. And I’m glad you’re repeating it because it warrants being heard again and again from real experiences like the one you just talked about, not just the stats at 90% will turn up, but this guy, my kids are saying, hey, we ain’t gonna keep Joe, right? Not gonna happen. And dad, and so just let me tell you the rest of the story. As I’ve tried to find an advisor they’re comfortable with and I’m comfortable with at my level has been finding a needle in a haystack.

And the thing is that, so we talked about team. Well, if I could find somebody that has 60% or 70% of what I’m looking for. And then they understood what I was saying to them. And they say, yeah, I got two people that I can bring in on the other parts. Okay, then bring them to the table. We can meet them. Well, you can close that deal with me quickly, but they can’t because they’re not thinking now. We talk about this a lot actually just in recent podcasts has said that we are not just planning for the clients, the whole household have to be thought about.

That means that the next generation, in fact, the X generation we’re seeing is taking over for the boomers early. Cause the boomers are saying I don’t wanna learn new technology. You just take your son, daughter, whatever. And they’re bringing in their own advisor. And hopefully they’re retrofitting on the tech side and the accessibility, the literacy, and of course empowerment. That’s really cool. You know, I gotta ask this question. How do you think American college is gonna change in the next 10 years? And how are you setting them up for success to support this next evolution of it? That is an excellent question. For us, we are actually shifting more to focus on what we think the client wants and needs.

So I can teach you all day long, all the sophisticated technical knowledge you need to know to be an effective and compliant financial advisor. We have programs that are focused on helping you in the specialization. One, getting you the table stakes of comprehensive financial planning, any specialization that you want. And our goal is to add, as we go down the future, how to build and participate in teaming, how to truly address behavioral finance issues, how to address incorporating technology as a tool, which is all it is in your relationship with your clients. But because of this, I work for a firm and this is what they push for me to sell and market.

We decided we’d rather go and now do more in the consumer space and understand what is the consumer. I wanna understand what those women who are getting ready to receive $30 trillion, what is it they’re looking for? What do they say they want? Not just in how to address my financial transactions, but are there other things that they would want that are important in the concept of this? That’s where I want us to go. That’s where we’re trying to move into the consumer space. Because it used to be, Derek and I worked at the same company and so here was the view. If you wanted to know about the policyholder consumer, you had to ask the advisor, okay?

Because they are the only ones that knew because it was their client, okay? I remember it well. Well, now that same firm is saying like, no, I really need to go ask them just to make sure I’m getting it right. Now, but that’s a small process and most of us do research on how do I sell what I sell? Well, I’m not trying to do that. I’m agnostic on what all that is. I wanna know what is it they need and when I think about, let’s just take retirement. Most advisors never have a discussion with you about your health and wellness when they talk about your retirement strategy.

They talk about aggregation of the money and then what we’re gonna do in the distribution. Oh, my God, George got hurt on the job. George is in a wheelchair. Well, I feel really good. I got a lot of money, but why did you get hurt on the job? Well, I like playing on the job, like drinking on the job and like doing a whole bunch of other stuff, okay? Well, part of that is like a discussion about my wellness because you’re saying like, I’m gonna do all this for you, but what is it you wanna do? And then saying like, and how are you going about doing that?

That goes beyond the financial. Now, there may be some clients that say, I don’t wanna tell you all that. I get that. But in most cases, if you started in your relationship with me by saying, okay, George, tell me what is you wanna get to and then let’s talk about why you wanna do it, okay? This is, there are people out there that all they want is money. I got it. And they just figure out, how can you give me the next dollar? The majority of the people have a why in their life and you need to find that out because once you get there and you’re helping them achieve that, you now have a client forever.

Man, that was a great conversation, Adam. And something that really resonated with me towards the end there is when George talked about how most people have a why in their life, a why behind their money and what they wanna do with it now and in the future. And that’s so powerful. Not everybody, some people just want an extra buck like he talked about, but most people have the why. And I think advisors paying attention to that to have deeper conversations to understand that why. Man, that’s gonna be so successful. But man, it’s just part of a much greater conversation that we just had with him.

It’s a great point. And so many of us in the advice community haven’t been taught to ask that question. We’re seeing it more thematically come up in newer training programs or coaching programs or behavioral finances, you know, has been kind of breaking out as a new theme, but it’s true. I don’t know that a lot of advisors have found good ways to ask about people’s whys because it’s not necessarily a comfortable question nor does it always get associated with, oh, this is a technical advisor or this is an investment advisor. Now they’re asking me why. I thought they should tell me whether I should buy or it’s a fact book.

Why, what do you mean by why? I wanna make money, right? But I think this is really a theme that’s coming up more and more. Really, really great conversation from him. And of course, given the accolades of what he’s achieved it’s pretty impressive. So it was, thanks George for the time on that. What are the, what are the kind of takeaways? What can we debate about what he talked about? Well, he brings this up in a couple of different ways, but basically he’s talking about can advisors actually differentiate? He talked about, you know, that CFP, CHFC, CLU. I mean, there’s a ton of designations now available through the American college and even others.

And he talks about how they’re all table stakes now. So one is, I guess, do you believe that? Are they table stakes? And two, if they are, how does an advisor differentiate? You know, it’s funny. I was a CFP very early on and just like you. And I used it in the early days probably to bolster my credibility in the space 20 years ago. And, you know, I wanted to be a financial planner. I wanna look like a financial planner. I wanted to be able to answer that question. Then over time, I actually dropped it because I found I wasn’t getting marketing value from it anymore.

But then I actually went back and did all the CE and brought it back because again, it did actually lend itself to more credibility to my differentiation strategy. At least that was a perception that I had for myself. So I today, I’m a CFP again and pay my bills and pay my dues into my CE. And I, you know, I’m like, oh gosh, it’s like a project as we all know. But I am seeing everybody, you know, have some kind of designation as a marketing differentiation. Whether I see people actually applying CFP, we’ll call them ethics and process. I don’t know if I can say that that’s true.

So I think there’s one thing to be said for the marketing and one thing to be said for the actual process. It’s not always- That’s interesting. Are advisors getting for just the marketing aspect or are they utilizing what it really means to be one? It’s funny, I actually, I had my CHFC before my CFP and I remember I ordered from the American college the beautiful little trifold brochures of the CHFC and I would discuss with my clients what it means. So it was definitely a marketing credibility thing. But I think now- We’re a confidence business, right? I mean, we’re- Oh, a hundred percent. We’re a confidence business, so.

Well, I mean, Adam, if you’re gonna go to a doctor or a tax professional or a psychologist or a lawyer, the bare minimum is they better have the MD, the CPA or whatever, right? I’m not gonna want you cutting me open if you don’t have your MD, at least, right? But then after that, well, what’s your specialty? I need a heart surgeon, but you specialize in feet? Probably not a good mix, right? Spill says MD, man. You know, what’s the joke that you told me a while ago? What do you call the lowest GPA student from med school? A doctor. Doctor. So what do you call the guy who gets a 70 on his CFP exam?

A CFP, right? So I think George was onto something there. There has been a shift and I’m glad that people are getting these credentials. It is important. You do learn something by going through this great curriculum. But it’s kind of like, yeah, you better have the MD. Give me more than that. What do you specialize in as an advisor? Why should I pick you over the next CFP or CHFC or CLU, right? Yeah, I think that’s a great point because it’s true when you think about a physician, you expect that they’re a doctor, right? The health insurance, right? So they’ve done their due diligence. So we know that they’re reasonably credible, that the hospital chose to put them on the rolls there.

But you’re right. I think when you need a specialist, and it’s funny, Kitsis talked about this a bunch of years ago. He said, when you need a specialist, you look for the best specialist that you can get access to, right? You want a plumber? You’re like, yeah. You ask your neighbor, who’s a local plumber that’s not gonna take advantage of me. But when you have some strange cancer disease, you look for the best person you can get to and you look for credibility everywhere. And I think that was his point really relating to client expectations and something that you brought up before, which is an idea of putting the problem before the product.

And can you actually associate yourself as being the problem advocate, right? I basically help you understand and solve problems. I don’t just, I just bring solution X, Y, Z. Yeah, this goes into a deeper, bigger theme that George was talking about is that there’s this massive shift of client expectations. And you’re right. I mean, if all you can sell is one product or a suite of products, you know, you’ve got a bucket and a hammer, pretty soon everything starts looking like a nail, right? You know, and that may not be like, hey, I need you to replace my window. I don’t want you to hit it with a hammer, right?

Like a slow down a little bit. Glue a bunch of nails. Look at that, that doesn’t work. So there is this shift and focusing on problem. And he used a good example, like disability insurance. I think he mentioned how his dad had Alzheimer’s. Don’t focus on the insurance. Focus on here’s how we help people that have gone through this experience and have these problems, which is a great way to think, to differentiate, to go back to our first point. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of advisors tend to do that, right? They say, I don’t just do investment management. I do retirement planning, or I do retirement distribution planning, or I don’t do life insurance.

I do estate planning, right? And life insurance may be the way that I monetize it, but I think there’s a real keen eye to selling the problem as opposed to selling the solution, especially in your differentiation. And then, of course, be the best estate planner you can get to, just like that analogy that I talked about, Michael Kitz is talking about, with how can you be the one who’s sought after in the marketplace as the best in that category? Exactly. I do estate planning for business owners who have family-owned issues in the state of Delaware who like dogs and go skiing on the weekend. Like the more specificity you can be the best at that end, it’s gonna really be a way to differentiate.

No question. And as a consumer, I have expectations. I know what my problems are, at least generally. And all of a sudden, I find this person that likes skiing and dogs and is in my state and helps people with small businesses. I’m like, well, that’s me. Instant credibility, you’ve differentiated. Your CFP credential means a heck of a lot more to me than the next person. Well, that niching that we’ve done several podcasts on before, but whether it’s good to niche or not is an interesting one because he does also bring up the complaint that a lot of consumers want broader advice, not always just specific.

So I think getting specific advice for my specific problem is an attraction strategy for marketing, but also being able to deliver a broad swath of products and services, whether that’s legal, tax, insurance, and investments, maybe even banking, maybe even financial. Yeah, niching. It’s gonna be more important that we actually provide more services to the existing customers. And we’ve heard that one before, haven’t we? A number of times we have. And he even talks about, that’s one of the success factors he sees is what’s your ability as an advisor to build a great team that can do all of these different things. That’s another differentiator. So maybe being together all the specialists that you can so that you build a justice league or an X-Men or X, I don’t know, some kind of analogy here that you have, you can handle all the problems.

Well, the old A-Team, remember the old A-Team? There you go. More guys that could solve every problem. Actually, well, then that would ask the question. Well, what is MacGyver then relative to A-Team? Oh, man, MacGyver. Ooh, I would want MacGyver to ride along in the van with the A-Team. That’s what I would want. You should join the A-Team. You should join the A-Team. Just bring his duct tape and he can solve all the problems with this army duct tape. It’s funny actually that, because that throws back to our generation, right? Because in the same vein, I think a lot of advisors are trying to play MacGyver.

Right? And that’s an interesting analogy. Are we a MacGyver? Or are we trying to build A-Team? Or whatever your favorite team was out there on the… I love that. That actually makes a ton of sense. And nothing wrong with MacGyver. He did quite well. But if the client’s looking for the A-Team and you’re only MacGyver, and that’s what George is saying, is that the client expectations, what they’re looking for, how they’re looking for has changed. And he even talks about this with this whole wealth transfer thing going on. You know what I just realized? Actually, you know what a tech-enabled advisor would be? What’s that?

Knight Rider. So maybe you want to be the advisor? The Hoff? Or is the advisor Kit? No, the advisor’s David Hasselhoff. Kit is basically his whole tech stack. So you are saying that all advisors are the Hoff now. Okay. That’s right. Well, then you can go into Baywatch. That’s what their retirement job is, okay? Retirement job is Baywatch on the beach. Do you think we could get a picture of George we could put into like an A-Team or the Hoff or something? That would be pretty cool. Maybe get him on Baywatch. Absolutely. We have those kinds of connections anywhere. Your shows are closed. I think they are canceled.

But that’s an interesting thing. I mean, I can imagine if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re wondering, you know, which one am I, right? Am I any one of those things? Or maybe I’m the Hulk. I don’t even know. But I think the point is, is that there’s lots of fun analogies to I think relate to what George talks about because clients want different things and not every client wants the same thing. And I think that’s an important aspect to choose a direction and to start chiseling out a category. I loved what he said about the wealth transfer opportunity and about not wanting your dad’s advisor.

What did you think about that? Well, we can chuckle about it, but it is the hard truth. I mean, you and I both have kids that are almost the exact same age. And it’s interesting. I’m starting to see how what they think is cool versus what I think is cool. And they tend to be different. Not Knight Rider. I apologize. He’s right. And we do have this massive wealth transfer. He was talking about this lack of engaging as part of this wealth transfer conversation and that, what do you say? 80% of females that inherit the wealth will change advisors within one year because that existing advisor never gave two craps about them, right?

And it’s a real shame, but it’s a real opportunity too, I think. And just addressing that, this is a bigger conversation that involves multiple parties. You should probably involve all of them, right? That’s true. We’ve mentioned it a couple of times that the adult children of many of our boomer clients that are getting older, that will likely be left to us as the non-CFO spouse who we didn’t have the same level of relationship with are likely to be brought in. Those kids are gonna likely be brought in. And they bring their own attitudes, expectations of performance and fees and deliverable tech and all those things.

And we need to start recognizing that, although I think everybody’s been talking about the great wealth transfer for now 10 years and saying, well, hasn’t it happened? These boomers are living forever, right? They’re all gonna be in long-term care and maybe they’re gonna spend all their money. But we all know that for the most part, there’s an enormous amount of wealth out there and there’s no transfer there. And so the question is, can we get involved now in bringing not only the under-engaged spouse into the story, but maybe even their children? I think this is gonna be an important aspect because I don’t think that the successor client, that means usually the surviving partner, is going to be choosing their advisor.

I think their children are, because they’re likely gonna be the executors, executrixes, and they’re gonna probably have to make the decisions for mom and her in her older age or dad in his older age. And I think that that’s gonna be important for advisors to pay attention to this now. Oh yeah, I mean, think about that. Dad passes away, kids are chatting with mom. Hey mom, what did you think about your existing advisor? Oh, I don’t even remember his name. He never talked to me. Kids are like, oh, and he sends you all this paper and it’s really hard to work with them? What’s he charging, by the way, Derek?

Yeah, and what’s he charging you? Oh, I don’t know, he never told me. Oh, I’m gone. Like the kids are like, hey mom, we got you. We’re gonna help you. We know what we can do. We’re gonna help you get some. That’s the kind of conversation that’s gonna happen like millions of times. It is, it is. And for those people that are buying practices, cause we know there’s a lot of ex-gen advisors buying practices from let’s say retiring advisors. And guess who their clients are? The relationship currency is all with those older individuals that may not wanna change in retirement, right? They’re gonna be deathly afraid of changing their advisor.

So the argument is that that asset will be sticky unless now there’s no relationship with mom. And the kid is like, hey, you haven’t talked to that new guy that took over for Joe, dad’s best friend advisor. They went golfing with like, think about it. If you care at all about the succession value, this is time. We need to start building those bridges right now to next gen and communicating with the under engaged spouse. I think that’s really big of George to pick up. And as we’re talking about table stakes, you gotta do this just because it makes sense. Now I was curious how American college is actually moving towards more client empowerment on financial literacy, taking their big machine that they’ve created on financial wellness and literacy and education and actually redirecting it to helping consumers who want to get educated.

I thought that was really interesting. It’s really cool. They have so much experience and knowledge and reach. Why not go direct to consumer, almost like an introductory financial literacy type. I mean, it’s so brilliant. Everyone wins with something like this and they have the powerhouse of people and content to do it. Well, what happens if they install this in the colleges? What happens if they install this in the high schools? I mean, the reality is, is that certainly people who are interested in learning more about finance one-on-one or getting literacy, it seems to me that the market TAM or the total addressable market is massive, right?

But they could do that socially if they start getting and creating standardized education for next gen. I think it’ll really accelerate what we talked about previously, which is an empowerment of the adult children, I think, and maybe even the millennial children that are gonna likely take the assets of the boomer generation, so. Well, what’s really big. What’s cool on this is that now the consumer has a trusted resource that’s educated them and empowered them. A lot of they’re gonna be, the next question will naturally be, well, now I need help to do this Roth IRA or now I need help to get my life insurance.

Hey, American College, who do you recommend? Great point. I mean, I think what they have, 200,000-ish alumni now in their network, it’s huge. I’m one of them, just like you. So am I. Oh yeah? I got my LUTCF with them. That’s how long I’ve been with them. No kidding, I didn’t know you had that. Now you’re even credible. How many designations do you have, Derek? CFP, CHFC, CLU, LUTCF. No kidding. How about you? A, B, C, D. I do have my CFP, I have CHFC, HLP, which is from Columbia, and I’ve done other certificate programs, but I’ve stopped on the alphabet soup, especially when they were getting smaller and smaller and obscure, but that’s really cool.

See, who knew that you were so much more educated than me? I never would have known that one. Never would have known. Definitely not by looking at me. And I got age on you too. All this was really cool to hear from George, and actually I’d had conversations with his team a couple of years ago, learning that they’re really focusing on also HCBUs and how they can empower a whole bunch of generations that are generally disenfranchised with financial education. And there’s huge issues, obviously, that many of us are completely unaware in terms of social implications of wealth creation. And I think it’s great that they’re doing that.

So really just hats off to George and the whole team there. I’m really curious. We talked about so many different aspects of what the college is doing, Derek, and I know you have a huge project that you’re working on to try to solve a lot of these problems. How does that relate? What are you guys doing together? Well, so we’re really excited about this, Adam. Couplers all about going upstream in the human relationship experience and connecting people for the right reasons at the right time and place. And long story short, we’ve built a really great relationship with the American college to the point now where we are launching this month our partnership, where we will be powering what they call their Your Advisor Guide experience to help consumers get matched with the right financial advisor for them.

We’re just so excited because I couldn’t ask for a better partner. They’re huge. Literally we’re aligned. I mean, look at everything we talked about today. So just really excited. That’s launching as we speak and good things to come for sure. What is that? That’s interesting. I actually don’t know this. So what does that mean for the advisor community or the customer? What’s that gonna do? So as you said, the American college does have a consumer facing experience already called Your Advisor Guide. And clearly they’re doing stuff with more financial literacy. They’re going more direct to consumer. And those people, we know a percentage of them are gonna need help.

Well, look at the American college. They have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of advisors in their network. And now they’re gonna be able to use Coupler to match those consumers with their network of advisors based upon these different client experience and expectations and demographics and all of these human elements we call them. We’re gonna be powering that experience. I mean, how cool is that? So wait, so my analogy of as a consumer, I can find the advisor who’s credible from American college, who does work in the estate planning for small business owners who likes dogs and go skiing on the weekend. Bingo. Wow. All you have to do as an advisor is opt in.

Super easy to do as part of the, your existing experience with them. Really exciting. Yeah. If I wanna find the right advisor for me based on what I care about, shared interest is a huge one because we all know if I don’t love the advisor, I don’t feel like they really understand me or they don’t understand, let’s say we love music. I guess you could say I love music and I like this kind of personality. I don’t wanna be bullied around. I wanna pay fee only. Are you saying that I’m gonna get that capacity? Yeah. We get into the weeds quite a bit. Really quick, simple, beautiful experience, but it’s a consumer driven one too.

So we’ll give the consumer the opportunity to get what they want. And as George said, most people have a why. That why is pretty personal. That is, yeah. If I’m gonna open up and tell an advisor my why and my financial skeletons and all of these things, darn it all, I better make sure I have rapport and trust with them based upon these different shared commonalities. Very cool. That was, that’s pretty awesome. I look forward to seeing that myself. I’ll sign up since I’m an alumni as well. Woo-hoo. That’s exciting. Cool. Well, thank you, George, for doing this. It was a really interesting, and of course, we love what you’ve done and been able to achieve.

Certainly someone who’s gonna, I think, continue to do great things in our industry. So thank you for all your contributing, George. And of course, for lifting so many of us in industry and outside of it. I think it’s sort of a great testament to your work. Derek, as always, appreciate your partnership on this project. Anything you wanna leave us with? No, great conversation, George. Thank you as well. And if you’re listening, hopefully you enjoyed this and got a few laughs in the process. Make sure to follow us, send us a question if you want us to debate something and just go keep being awesome. There you go.

Keep it awesome. Keep being awesome. Yeah. All right, my friend. See you later. See you later. 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.