RPF0170-Fred_Gabriel_Interview
00:00:00.000 | ♪ Bless him in the mornings ♪
00:00:03.000 | ♪ Come back Sunday morning ♪
00:00:05.000 | California's top casino and entertainment destination
00:00:08.000 | is now your California to Vegas connection.
00:00:11.000 | Play at Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel
00:00:14.000 | to earn points, rewards, and complimentary experiences
00:00:17.000 | for the iconic Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
00:00:21.000 | ♪ Got to sort of tell 'em ♪
00:00:23.000 | Two destinations, one loyalty card.
00:00:26.000 | Visit yamava.com/palms to discover more.
00:00:30.000 | Do you get tired of listening, reading, and seeing ads
00:00:34.000 | everywhere you go in today's modern culture?
00:00:37.000 | Do you get more than $2 a month of value
00:00:40.000 | from Radical Personal Finance?
00:00:42.000 | Two bucks a month from every listener of the show
00:00:45.000 | keeps the show ad-free forever.
00:00:48.000 | For details on how you can be a part of that,
00:00:50.000 | go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
00:00:55.000 | Today I'm going to bring on a guest
00:00:57.000 | who has an extensive history
00:01:00.000 | of covering the financial advice industry.
00:01:06.000 | My guest is Fred Gabriel.
00:01:08.000 | He spent the last 17 years at Investment News.
00:01:12.000 | He started as a mutual fund reporter,
00:01:14.000 | and today he's the editor of the publication.
00:01:17.000 | He's going to share with us his observations
00:01:19.000 | of the changing trends in financial advice.
00:01:23.000 | ♪
00:01:39.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:01:41.000 | My name is Joshua Sheets.
00:01:43.000 | Welcome to the show.
00:01:44.000 | I know not all of you are financial advisors,
00:01:46.000 | but all of you are interested in finance.
00:01:49.000 | And I think this episode has some tidbits for you,
00:01:53.000 | especially if you're interested
00:01:55.000 | in the business of financial advice.
00:01:58.000 | But it might also explain some things to you
00:02:00.000 | if you're simply a consumer of financial advice.
00:02:03.000 | Stay tuned.
00:02:04.000 | ♪
00:02:11.000 | I try to walk a delicate balance on this show
00:02:13.000 | of speaking and appealing to the consumer audience
00:02:17.000 | and also speaking and appealing
00:02:19.000 | to the financial advisor audience.
00:02:21.000 | I have many listeners that fall into both of those categories.
00:02:24.000 | And so I'm very careful with some of the content
00:02:26.000 | that I release on this show,
00:02:27.000 | because sometimes it gets a little bit
00:02:29.000 | too financial advisor-focused,
00:02:30.000 | and sometimes it's exclusively consumer-focused.
00:02:34.000 | I think they both have value.
00:02:36.000 | And one of the reasons why I release
00:02:38.000 | both of these types of content into the same show
00:02:41.000 | is I want you as a consumer
00:02:44.000 | to feel like you have an understanding
00:02:46.000 | of what the financial advice industry is like
00:02:50.000 | so that you can make better decisions for yourself.
00:02:53.000 | That's one of my purposes.
00:02:55.000 | I strongly believe in transparency.
00:02:59.000 | I believe that if you just simply tell me the facts,
00:03:02.000 | tell me how things work,
00:03:04.000 | I am capable of making up my own mind,
00:03:07.000 | and I feel the same way for you.
00:03:09.000 | So my goal in some of the content that I bring you
00:03:11.000 | is just simply here's the business,
00:03:13.000 | here's what you're going to face,
00:03:14.000 | here are the trends happening in the industry.
00:03:16.000 | Now you make up your own mind.
00:03:18.000 | And so this episode is no different.
00:03:21.000 | This is a deep interview with Fred Gabriel.
00:03:24.000 | As I mentioned, Fred has spent the last 17 years
00:03:26.000 | at a publication called Investment News.
00:03:28.000 | And Investment News is exclusively focused
00:03:31.000 | on covering the investment industry.
00:03:34.000 | And I think you're really going to enjoy it.
00:03:36.000 | I think you're going to benefit from it.
00:03:38.000 | Fred has followed an interesting path
00:03:40.000 | through his career of, as I said,
00:03:42.000 | beginning as an initial mutual fund reporter.
00:03:44.000 | Today he's an editor of the entire publication.
00:03:47.000 | And I met him when I was out in Dallas, yeah, Dallas,
00:03:52.000 | Dallas a few weeks ago – or a month and a half ago,
00:03:55.000 | something like that,
00:03:56.000 | for the Technology Tools for Today conference,
00:03:58.000 | and he was gracious enough to give me
00:03:59.000 | about 30-plus minutes of his time.
00:04:01.000 | And I think you're really going to enjoy this.
00:04:03.000 | There are some tidbits in this show
00:04:05.000 | about the changing role of technology
00:04:08.000 | in every industry, but it's specifically applied
00:04:14.000 | to the financial advice industry.
00:04:16.000 | We cover some information on how
00:04:19.000 | the investment advice industry is changing,
00:04:21.000 | how firms are changing,
00:04:23.000 | the changing role of marketing for financial advisors.
00:04:25.000 | And I would encourage you – this applies
00:04:28.000 | to financial advice, but make sure that you're
00:04:31.000 | watching these trends in your own industry,
00:04:34.000 | assuming it's an industry other than
00:04:35.000 | the industry of financial advice.
00:04:38.000 | Times are changing, and it's probably
00:04:42.000 | a more effective strategy for you to be a leader
00:04:45.000 | in the change so that you know what direction
00:04:49.000 | your industry is changing in,
00:04:51.000 | rather than simply sitting back
00:04:53.000 | and waiting to see what happens.
00:04:55.000 | As the aphorism goes, the best way to know
00:04:58.000 | the future is to create the future.
00:05:00.000 | Here we go.
00:05:01.000 | [Swoosh]
00:05:03.000 | Fred, welcome to the show. I appreciate you being here.
00:05:05.000 | Well, thank you, Joshua.
00:05:06.000 | So we're here at T3, and T3 is all about the technology.
00:05:10.000 | But one of the things I wanted to do
00:05:12.000 | while at this conference was get a little bit
00:05:14.000 | of the history and then also the future
00:05:17.000 | of the financial advisory business.
00:05:20.000 | So I was trying to find who were some of the people
00:05:22.000 | that have been around for a little while,
00:05:24.000 | and who are some of the people that would be
00:05:26.000 | on – who would have a broad overview
00:05:28.000 | of the marketplace, and that was how I –
00:05:30.000 | that was how I came up with your name.
00:05:32.000 | Well, I've been around a while.
00:05:33.000 | So what's your history with the investment business?
00:05:36.000 | Well, I've been at Investment News since the beginning,
00:05:38.000 | which is about 17 years now.
00:05:40.000 | I started out as a mutual fund reporter.
00:05:42.000 | But we've always written it from the perspective
00:05:46.000 | of financial advisors.
00:05:47.000 | So I've covered this space for a very long time,
00:05:50.000 | and I've seen the evolution over that time,
00:05:53.000 | you know, of the rise of independent advisors
00:05:56.000 | and RIAs and what's going on at the wire houses.
00:06:00.000 | So over the last 17 years, when you started,
00:06:03.000 | what did the investment company landscape look like?
00:06:07.000 | How would you describe that?
00:06:08.000 | Well, that's interesting.
00:06:09.000 | It was a much more sales-oriented culture
00:06:13.000 | many years ago, and I think that is changing,
00:06:16.000 | and I think we heard that this afternoon –
00:06:18.000 | or this morning.
00:06:21.000 | One of the things that really stands out to me
00:06:23.000 | is that when I first started covering
00:06:25.000 | the investment advisor space, there were very few –
00:06:29.000 | a handful of firms that had more than a billion dollars
00:06:32.000 | in assets, literally a handful.
00:06:35.000 | I mean, you could count them on one hand, I think.
00:06:38.000 | That has changed dramatically.
00:06:39.000 | In fact, Investment News' research now shows
00:06:43.000 | that the rise has gone from like 2% 10 years ago
00:06:49.000 | to now 18% of RIAs have more than a billion dollars in assets.
00:06:54.000 | So I think what we've seen is just a growth of –
00:06:58.000 | the growth of the industry there.
00:07:00.000 | Has it been because of simply advisors
00:07:03.000 | getting onto the wealth management space?
00:07:05.000 | Has it been because of the baby boomers accumulating wealth
00:07:07.000 | or simply compound growth over time?
00:07:09.000 | What do you contribute it to?
00:07:10.000 | I would attribute that to all of the above.
00:07:13.000 | Nice answer.
00:07:14.000 | Definitely demographics is playing into this.
00:07:18.000 | I mean, we're definitely –
00:07:19.000 | with more than 10,000 baby boomers retiring
00:07:21.000 | every single day now, those assets are migrating
00:07:27.000 | into kind of the retirement space.
00:07:29.000 | So advisors are becoming more important to those investors.
00:07:35.000 | We've seen a steady – I mean, this isn't new,
00:07:37.000 | but we've seen a steady outflow of advisors from the wirehouses.
00:07:43.000 | So they're bringing the assets there as well.
00:07:46.000 | But I think I would not discount wirehouse advisors at all.
00:07:50.000 | I mean, that's a perfectly good model for some people,
00:07:54.000 | and it's also a huge model still.
00:07:57.000 | Do you have a sense of some of the primary drivers
00:07:59.000 | that are causing the exodus from the wirehouses?
00:08:02.000 | I think a lot of it is just –
00:08:06.000 | I think the advisors that are leaving the wirehouses
00:08:09.000 | are doing so because they're entrepreneurial in nature.
00:08:12.000 | They want to run their own firms.
00:08:14.000 | They also earn more money if they do that,
00:08:16.000 | I mean, or theoretically anyway.
00:08:18.000 | Theoretically, right.
00:08:19.000 | They share less of their revenue with the mothership.
00:08:24.000 | So that's certainly attractive.
00:08:27.000 | But I think more to that, it's really that entrepreneurial nature
00:08:31.000 | that many advisors have.
00:08:33.000 | It's just instinct with them.
00:08:36.000 | And I think the independent route allows them to kind of express that,
00:08:41.000 | and I think that's why you see a lot of them leaving.
00:08:44.000 | Are you seeing the wirehouses respond
00:08:46.000 | with changing their business structures, offering different things?
00:08:51.000 | Oh, absolutely.
00:08:52.000 | I mean, the wirehouses have been responding very dramatically.
00:08:57.000 | You see them doing much more in terms of offering their advisors
00:09:00.000 | practice management assistance in their programs.
00:09:07.000 | You see them paying better, recruiting.
00:09:10.000 | I mean, look at the way they recruit.
00:09:12.000 | I mean, very generous bonuses and incentives to stay with them.
00:09:17.000 | I mean, that's largely been a key part of their response.
00:09:21.000 | Why the trend away from salesmanship?
00:09:25.000 | Oh, that's a big question.
00:09:28.000 | I don't ask easy ones.
00:09:29.000 | No, no, no.
00:09:30.000 | That's a big question.
00:09:32.000 | I think the trend away from salesmanship is really coming from the consumers
00:09:37.000 | or the clients.
00:09:40.000 | As these clients retire, they're not in the accumulation phase anymore.
00:09:48.000 | Now they want to preserve their assets,
00:09:50.000 | but they're also dealing with things like, "How much vacation can I take
00:09:53.000 | and how long will my investment portfolio last?"
00:09:57.000 | So I think they're asking deeper questions of advisors.
00:10:02.000 | I think the rise of the fiduciary standard is also fueling that.
00:10:10.000 | But there's definitely--when I first started at Investment News,
00:10:14.000 | I remember when they first started talking about holistic financial planning,
00:10:19.000 | which is really looking at your clients as people and not just a pocket of assets.
00:10:26.000 | That has definitely taken hold, and we're seeing that.
00:10:29.000 | We're seeing that everywhere.
00:10:32.000 | Even all the wire houses have programs to facilitate deeper financial planning for clients.
00:10:39.000 | Do you have a sense of what you expect to see happening in the industry
00:10:43.000 | over the next 3, 4, 5, 10 years?
00:10:47.000 | Geez, another big question.
00:10:50.000 | I mean, there's so many ways to answer that.
00:10:53.000 | I think we're still going to see firms getting bigger.
00:10:57.000 | I think we're going to see the RIAs are going to continue to rise.
00:11:00.000 | I mean, look, generally what's happening in the industry is the wire house group is declining.
00:11:08.000 | The independent dealer group is also declining.
00:11:11.000 | RIAs are actually growing.
00:11:14.000 | So I think we're going to see more of that.
00:11:16.000 | But with that, I think we're going to see bigger RIAs.
00:11:18.000 | We're going to see more M&A activity among RIAs.
00:11:22.000 | We're also going to see more advisors retiring.
00:11:26.000 | You have to remember that the average age of an advisor today I think is in the area of 55.
00:11:31.000 | That's the average age, which means there's many, many advisors that are 60, 65, 70.
00:11:39.000 | I know one advisor who's 89 years old.
00:11:41.000 | Good for them.
00:11:43.000 | And I think that's going to be a big trend.
00:11:45.000 | So you're going to see a lot of changing of the guard,
00:11:49.000 | which is frankly going to be a problem for the business because they haven't prepared for that.
00:11:54.000 | Do you have a sense of the changing role of marketing?
00:11:59.000 | And let me expand on my question.
00:12:01.000 | One of the things I look at is it seems to me I've only been in and around the business for about six years,
00:12:06.000 | so I don't have quite the historical frame of reference.
00:12:10.000 | But it seems to me from my personal experience and also from studying that in the past,
00:12:17.000 | the big name meant something more than it seems to mean today.
00:12:21.000 | Whereas today it's hard for me to think, although there are certainly some brands that are well cared for
00:12:28.000 | and the officers of the company have done a good job protecting their brand image,
00:12:34.000 | it feels to me, and I can't back this up with data,
00:12:36.000 | but it feels to me like the importance of the big brand has diminished.
00:12:41.000 | And rather now in today's world where frankly all of us are marketers
00:12:47.000 | with what we put out on our social media streams and what we put out on our websites,
00:12:52.000 | we all have the ability to reach other people.
00:12:55.000 | It seems as though the shift is changing away from the big mothership marketing to the individual marketing.
00:13:03.000 | Do you think I'm right? Do you think I'm wrong? What do you think?
00:13:05.000 | I think you're right for the most part.
00:13:08.000 | I think what happened, what you're referring to, is in 2008 and 2009 especially.
00:13:14.000 | The big brand, and let's be realistic, the big brand that we're talking about are the large wire house firms,
00:13:22.000 | definitely took a hit in the minds of consumers and clients.
00:13:28.000 | And we definitely saw more clients defect those firms because they didn't feel that they had their backs.
00:13:35.000 | That said, I think that their reputation, I think they're coming back.
00:13:41.000 | I mean, I think people have a short memories and I think that, so I wouldn't count them out is what I'm saying.
00:13:49.000 | In terms of the smaller firms, I mean, the big change really has just been that 10 years ago,
00:13:57.000 | very few advisors had marketing platforms or had any marketing plans in place at all.
00:14:04.000 | That is definitely changing.
00:14:05.000 | I mean, as they're becoming larger, they're becoming much savvier about marketing their firms.
00:14:12.000 | That said, I mean, it's still hard if you ask someone to come up with, you know,
00:14:17.000 | if you asked a man on the street to name five registered investment advisory firms,
00:14:24.000 | I don't think, I think the first thing they'd ask you, "What's a registered investment advisory firm?"
00:14:29.000 | So I think there's a lot of opportunity there for advisors to build a big brand for themselves.
00:14:37.000 | There's been at this conference so far, there's been a lot of content.
00:14:40.000 | I know there's even more on the agenda surrounding marketing and how to market independent firms and just how to market.
00:14:49.000 | Do you see from your kind of overall vantage point, have you seen some big success stories in that area that come to mind?
00:14:56.000 | I mean, firms doing it really well?
00:15:00.000 | Yes, absolutely. I mean, you definitely see, you know, like the first one that comes to mind to me is like a firm like Fox Financial Network comes to mind.
00:15:10.000 | So I think there are success stories out there.
00:15:15.000 | But I wouldn't say, I still think, I mean, I'm being perfectly honest here.
00:15:19.000 | I think there's still a lot of room for improvement on the marketing front.
00:15:22.000 | And I think that firms have to think about marketing differently.
00:15:26.000 | I mean, it's not just about, you know, for an advisor, it's not just about taking out an ad in a local newspaper, right?
00:15:32.000 | It's really about, you know, your website.
00:15:36.000 | What does that look like?
00:15:37.000 | What's the experience that clients are having there?
00:15:41.000 | I mean, if you look at many advisor sites today, they look exactly like they did in 1997 still, right?
00:15:48.000 | That's marketing still.
00:15:49.000 | And, you know, if you go to a site, you know, like Zappos, it's a very different experience than what you'd see, you know, on an advisory firm.
00:15:58.000 | And it's granted an advisory firm isn't trying to be as salesy as that, but there's a lot more interactivity.
00:16:04.000 | Social media is another still vastly underutilized realm for advisors.
00:16:11.000 | And it's not marketing in the traditional sense.
00:16:14.000 | They're not allowed to market that way.
00:16:16.000 | But they can still connect, you know, marketing really is about connecting with your clients.
00:16:20.000 | And very few advisors or advisory firms do a great job at connecting through social media right now.
00:16:28.000 | Why not?
00:16:29.000 | What do you think it is about the advisory firm and the advisors that keeps them from embracing some of these changes?
00:16:35.000 | Well, I don't think it's their fault necessarily.
00:16:38.000 | I think part of it was just, or part of it has always been that regulators haven't known how to respond to them.
00:16:44.000 | And regulators, and I think this is changing, but regulators have always been really tough on, or have traditionally been really tough on social media and not really allowed them or they wanted tweets to be cleared.
00:16:57.000 | And I'm referring to Twitter.
00:16:58.000 | But even LinkedIn profiles had to be cleared and approved.
00:17:02.000 | And what you'd come back with is a very impersonal kind of template.
00:17:06.000 | And that doesn't play well in that realm, right?
00:17:09.000 | But I do think that's changing.
00:17:11.000 | I think, you know, we write about this in investment news.
00:17:14.000 | In fact, a column that I wrote last week, or maybe it was the week before, talked about how regulators really have to like stopping an obstacle to advisors in that realm.
00:17:24.000 | It's really time that, you know, they let them be their best selves on social media.
00:17:30.000 | Do you see advisors leaving for that reason to get out or changing their type of firm to get where they get a little bit more regulatory, not freedom, but just a little bit more control over the rules because of those kinds of marketing efforts?
00:17:46.000 | No, I don't see that because of marketing.
00:17:49.000 | I mean, I do think, you know, there are some advisors that will say that they will go the RIA route.
00:17:55.000 | I've heard people say they'll go the RIA route because they have to deal with the SEC, which, you know, I think it's been pretty well reported, doesn't do a great job of watching them.
00:18:09.000 | But I don't see a mass defection over that.
00:18:13.000 | Yeah, it's interesting.
00:18:14.000 | That was one of the big reasons why I left the firm I was with was because I'm just looking around and I'm a millennial.
00:18:21.000 | So we are known as being impulsive and wanting to get things.
00:18:27.000 | But I just looked around and I said, it's 2015 or 2000, it's 2015 as we record, it's 2014.
00:18:34.000 | And the corporate sanitized bullet points, I mean, it's just it's professional PR and it's boring and nobody cares about it.
00:18:46.000 | And it just got so frustrating to me to say, why are we publishing another article with six financial tips to prepare you for Valentine's Day?
00:18:55.000 | Like nobody, nobody reads this.
00:18:57.000 | But if you pull out your phone and you shoot a video of you in some kind of clear way, it doesn't need fancy graphics.
00:19:04.000 | It doesn't need the corporate sanitizing.
00:19:08.000 | Then that engages me with prospective clients.
00:19:11.000 | And the roadblocks are so high that it just was extremely frustrating to me.
00:19:17.000 | Now, I've thought about it from both sides.
00:19:19.000 | I said, well, what if I were running the large firm?
00:19:21.000 | Could I possibly allow that?
00:19:23.000 | I couldn't, you know, because you've got your brand image to protect.
00:19:25.000 | You're not responsible for just one individual person.
00:19:28.000 | And you're responsible for the entire entity and you're responsible for being the steward of the assets of the corporation and protecting it for the owners.
00:19:39.000 | So I can't imagine how tough it is to be in a boardroom at some of the companies right now.
00:19:44.000 | But I just know it was a real frustration.
00:19:46.000 | I know a lot of peers, you know, when I talk to other younger financial advisors, I know it's a constant frustration.
00:19:53.000 | And I'm just watching it carefully to see what the demographic trends change because I'm not asking a specific question.
00:20:02.000 | It's just I watch it and I wonder what the future is going to hold.
00:20:04.000 | Right.
00:20:05.000 | Well, I think you raise a number of good points there, and I think you're right.
00:20:09.000 | I think it is very constrained.
00:20:11.000 | I mean, I kind of laugh sometimes when I see – I'm not going to name the wire house, but you'll know that they approved a certain tweet, right?
00:20:19.000 | Because all of a sudden, you know, 10 of the wire house advisors that I follow put out the same tweet.
00:20:25.000 | And, you know, I only see that because I follow a bunch of them.
00:20:28.000 | So, you know, the one person who's following one of those advisors isn't seeing that.
00:20:33.000 | But you definitely see that.
00:20:35.000 | But I do think, Joshua, that is going to change.
00:20:38.000 | I think it's going to have to change.
00:20:40.000 | And, you know, you also speak to the other point about, I mean, you're a millennial, and you actually consume this information very differently from most advisors, clients.
00:20:51.000 | And clients – excuse me, advisors, you know, have done kind of a woeful job of appealing to millennials right now.
00:21:01.000 | Now, they're turning their attention to it.
00:21:03.000 | And, again, we heard it this morning with Bishwab talking about, you know, it's very much an untapped market.
00:21:09.000 | But I don't think there has been a lot of demand for the kind of content you're talking about from the typical advisor's client.
00:21:17.000 | But that is absolutely changing.
00:21:19.000 | And if advisors don't get there, they're going to be in a lot of trouble.
00:21:22.000 | That's the trend I see.
00:21:24.000 | And I'm glad you brought that up because it's absolutely correct.
00:21:26.000 | I consume information very differently than my 70-year-old mother.
00:21:31.000 | But here's the change.
00:21:33.000 | My 70-year-old mother now is consuming information like I was two years ago.
00:21:37.000 | You know, she – I can't get her – I can't get – this is – it's semi-true.
00:21:42.000 | It's a little bit exaggerated.
00:21:44.000 | But it's like you can't get her phone out of her hand and get her off of Facebook, you know.
00:21:47.000 | So here she is doing exactly what people of my generation were doing two years ago.
00:21:52.000 | And so I see – and I'm astounded at it, and I just am astounded that more people don't seem to realize it – that, yes, it may be that younger people may be the early adopters.
00:22:03.000 | But, you know, my dad's got his phablet, and he's got the world at his fingertips.
00:22:09.000 | My mom has her smartphone.
00:22:11.000 | She's got the world at her fingertips, and they're in their 70s.
00:22:13.000 | And they're as conservative and as old-fashioned as it gets.
00:22:16.000 | And here they are consuming the same type of information.
00:22:19.000 | And so with the speed that things are changing over time, I think it's, to me, to expect my mom in two years to be consuming information like she did 20 years ago.
00:22:32.000 | I would expect her to be more like where I'm going to be in six months.
00:22:36.000 | And that window is really shortening up, at least what I see.
00:22:40.000 | It's interesting.
00:22:41.000 | I mean, you know, so I have the same mother, OK?
00:22:43.000 | And I actually bought her an iPad a couple years ago for Christmas.
00:22:47.000 | And I went and set it all up for her.
00:22:49.000 | And she's very active on Facebook there now.
00:22:51.000 | But she will not enter, you know – she does not want to get her financial information.
00:22:57.000 | She doesn't trust – she has an account at Vanguard.
00:22:59.000 | She does not trust the whole password and username system.
00:23:03.000 | She, you know, absolutely will not go there.
00:23:06.000 | I do think it's changing.
00:23:07.000 | I think eventually, you know, it's going to become convenient for those consumers as well.
00:23:11.000 | So it absolutely is changing.
00:23:13.000 | I'm not saying that.
00:23:15.000 | But I think that, you know, it's probably not changing as quickly as you're saying, with us investors.
00:23:20.000 | That makes sense.
00:23:21.000 | And it'll be fascinating to watch, I think.
00:23:24.000 | I can't imagine a more challenging industry to govern change.
00:23:32.000 | I mean, my heart goes out to the regulators, the company leaders,
00:23:36.000 | because in so many ways we're still living under laws that were created in the 1930s,
00:23:42.000 | trying to apply those to 2015.
00:23:46.000 | And that's a bit of a messy process to integrate together.
00:23:50.000 | But I'm excited to see how advisors are working hard to build those relationships and advance the ball.
00:24:01.000 | Last final question for you.
00:24:04.000 | Do you see examples of advisors effectively building a greater level of trust with their clients?
00:24:12.000 | Because our industry, we have a terrible reputation.
00:24:15.000 | We're less trusted than many of the least trusted other occupations, if you look at the data.
00:24:21.000 | Do you see anybody, or you don't have to name them if you don't want to,
00:24:25.000 | but do you see anybody doing an effective job at rebuilding and building trust with the public?
00:24:30.000 | Absolutely.
00:24:31.000 | I mean, and what I see is, you know, a lot of advisors that take that relationship,
00:24:38.000 | the trust relationship with a client, very seriously.
00:24:41.000 | So I'm going to point to just an article that we just had in Investment News this week,
00:24:45.000 | and we were playing off what was going on with Brian Williams, actually.
00:24:49.000 | And so we looked at, you know, if you tell a white lie to a client, what does that mean?
00:24:56.000 | So your client calls and you say, "I'm in a meeting," when you're not in a meeting.
00:24:59.000 | Maybe you're drinking coffee.
00:25:01.000 | You know, I kind of expected, frankly, when we went into that story, that it would be,
00:25:07.000 | you know, yeah, everybody tells white lies.
00:25:09.000 | What we came back with and what advisors were saying and outsiders that we talked to
00:25:13.000 | is that you absolutely cannot do anything to damage that trust relationship.
00:25:18.000 | And a little white lie is a very slippery slope.
00:25:21.000 | So people or advocates--I think this.
00:25:25.000 | I see those studies all the time about how untrustworthy, you know, the financial advice business is.
00:25:34.000 | I absolutely do not agree with it, frankly.
00:25:38.000 | I think there's bad eggs out there or bad apples.
00:25:42.000 | I'm not sure what the expression is.
00:25:44.000 | And I think that when something like that hits the press, it tarnishes the whole industry.
00:25:49.000 | But I see the vast majority of advisors that I deal with, you know, working really hard to gain and to keep
00:26:00.000 | and, like I said, to hold on to their client's trust.
00:26:05.000 | So I'm going to extend with another follow-up because that was also my experience.
00:26:08.000 | So I came--before I was a financial advisor, I was a personal finance junkie.
00:26:14.000 | And at that time, I just looked at it and I said, "Financial advisors are a total waste of time and waste of money.
00:26:20.000 | I can do better on my own.
00:26:21.000 | Your broker is out to make you broker.
00:26:23.000 | Insurance is a scam.
00:26:25.000 | Like, I'm better off just doing things on my own.
00:26:27.000 | After all, I'm a DIYer."
00:26:29.000 | Then I recognized that there were people that might be interested in my topics on money.
00:26:35.000 | I became an advisor.
00:26:36.000 | And I met advisor after advisor after advisor after advisor that didn't fit that model that I'd previously had,
00:26:44.000 | that were caring, upstanding, trustworthy men and women who really deeply cared about their clients.
00:26:50.000 | And, yes, there were some advisors that I wouldn't--I don't want to be in the same room with.
00:26:55.000 | There's that in all industries.
00:26:57.000 | Just like there are some doctors who don't want to be in the same room.
00:26:59.000 | Absolutely.
00:27:00.000 | Absolutely.
00:27:01.000 | And yet the majority that I came in contact with, no matter the compensation structure, no matter the firm, no matter any of those solutions,
00:27:09.000 | I met people and I said, "This is somebody who I think is doing a good job."
00:27:14.000 | And so then I went back out on the financial media now.
00:27:17.000 | So now I'm no longer an advisor.
00:27:19.000 | Now I'm in the media.
00:27:20.000 | Right.
00:27:21.000 | And it's so challenging to help clients or prospective clients understand and navigate that
00:27:26.000 | and try to understand who are the good ones, who are the bad ones, and figure that out.
00:27:31.000 | Do you see--I want to get your input on that topic.
00:27:35.000 | The major thrust right now that I see in the consumer-facing media is talking about fee structures and compensation structures.
00:27:43.000 | Right.
00:27:44.000 | What do you see happening both from the rhetoric and also from the actual actions of companies and advisors of how they're structuring their fee structures?
00:27:54.000 | That's an interesting question because there is a lot of rhetoric around that, right?
00:27:59.000 | I mean, the bottom line, Joshua, is that the vast majority of clients don't care about fees, frankly.
00:28:10.000 | They just want to know at the end of the day, "Did my advisor make me money this year or this quarter or not?"
00:28:15.000 | They don't care to even delve into it.
00:28:17.000 | That's a shame, frankly.
00:28:20.000 | But I do think it's very easy to paint one fee model as good and another fee model as bad.
00:28:29.000 | And I think that actually there's room for all the fee models and there's plenty of times--and let's just call it like it is.
00:28:37.000 | It's usually the commission-based model right now that's getting--
00:28:40.000 | Right, getting dumped on.
00:28:41.000 | --clear conflict of interest or something.
00:28:44.000 | There's plenty of times where a commission model is actually more appropriate than a fee-based model.
00:28:50.000 | And the fee-based model is not without conflicts of its own as well.
00:28:54.000 | And I think as long as advisors are up front and they explain and the client really understands how they're being paid,
00:29:01.000 | they're not interested, that they understand, they're transparent with all fees, I think you can build a very good business model.
00:29:08.000 | But I think we're going to see a lot of changes around fees, fee structures.
00:29:12.000 | You see retainer models are becoming more popular.
00:29:16.000 | Hourly fees are becoming more popular or even the fees just for one-off services where you go in and say, "Okay, I'll pay $2,000 for a financial plan."
00:29:27.000 | But I think there is a lot of evolution in the fee space.
00:29:32.000 | And I think that the key is just not to get on a high horse and paint one structure as good or one structure as bad,
00:29:41.000 | but to really recognize that different clients at different times in their lives are more suited to different structures.
00:29:48.000 | Do you see more disclosure happening in the commission world?
00:29:52.000 | Or do you see anybody pressing for more disclosure?
00:29:56.000 | Absolutely, you see regulators pressing for more disclosure.
00:30:00.000 | I haven't seen on the part of advisors themselves a lot of willingness to provide that disclosure voluntarily.
00:30:10.000 | But I do think because regulators are pressing for it, it's going to happen.
00:30:15.000 | I see the demand on the client side.
00:30:17.000 | I started in a commission model and then within a year or two, I was in a commission and fee model.
00:30:22.000 | And then I moved to a fee-only model.
00:30:24.000 | Not because I was convinced that fee-only was the only way I could practice,
00:30:28.000 | but because it was convenient based upon the type of structure that I was setting up,
00:30:32.000 | that I didn't necessarily need any kind of commission model.
00:30:36.000 | And the marketing was all working in my favor.
00:30:39.000 | My fear is, however, that -- and I could argue for any of the models.
00:30:44.000 | They all have legitimate arguments.
00:30:46.000 | People who don't fully talk about things in their best light but only talk about things in their worst light,
00:30:55.000 | it's not a genuine argument.
00:30:57.000 | It's hypocritical and disingenuous.
00:31:00.000 | But the thing I am an advocate for is just, A, let the market decide, and B, let's provide disclosure.
00:31:08.000 | And as an advisor, if I'm doing my job right and I'm serving my clients appropriately and in an upright manner,
00:31:17.000 | I have nothing to fear.
00:31:19.000 | Let the market sort it out.
00:31:21.000 | So I'm curious because what you said was interesting.
00:31:23.000 | But you were seeing your clients asking more questions about fees?
00:31:28.000 | Not my clients, but when I was leaving.
00:31:30.000 | So I left the firm I was with because I could not create effective media.
00:31:35.000 | That was the only reason I left.
00:31:36.000 | And I said, "Look, at least a lot of people in my age demographic -- and I'm not talking about people who --
00:31:46.000 | great prospective clients, financially successful prospective clients from many age demographics,
00:31:51.000 | and even age demographics much older than me, are changing the way they consume information and media."
00:31:58.000 | And I was frustrated.
00:32:00.000 | My biggest frustration, I was frustrated that non-professional financial advisors are the ones who had the most media access to my clients.
00:32:08.000 | Why is it that there are people on TV?
00:32:10.000 | Why is it that there are people on the radio?
00:32:12.000 | Why is it that anybody in the world can sit down and put up a web page and talk about what's right with financial information?
00:32:20.000 | And there's no way to prove out that person's background.
00:32:22.000 | Now, I'm a free market guy, so I don't want to come and say, "Well, they shouldn't be allowed to talk about that."
00:32:26.000 | I'm sorry, I don't think that we should continue the cartel that is created about financial roadblocks and licensing and obfuscation.
00:32:34.000 | I'm a free market guy.
00:32:35.000 | But what I said is that some of us should go out there and compete.
00:32:38.000 | And somebody who has a background and who actually has some technical background and maybe some experience
00:32:44.000 | should be able to freely provide information and advice.
00:32:47.000 | And that's the route that I took.
00:32:49.000 | And I just don't see anybody doing that effectively.
00:32:51.000 | And so I said, "Somebody's got to do this and convey the value of a financial advisor."
00:32:56.000 | Because the only value of a good financial advisor is not that we can generate an extra 32 basis points of alpha on a portfolio.
00:33:03.000 | Don't judge me by that standard.
00:33:05.000 | And let me tell you and let me communicate clearly and transparently what a good financial advisor does.
00:33:12.000 | So that was the primary reason that I left.
00:33:16.000 | So under that scenario, I went and started the process of setting up my own RIA so that I could have a little bit more control over my compliance.
00:33:26.000 | That was basically it.
00:33:28.000 | That yes, I do not wish to say or do anything that is wrong.
00:33:32.000 | But I need a little bit of freedom here to actually talk about something that's mildly interesting and that hasn't been whitewashed completely
00:33:40.000 | and made corporatized and boring to where nobody even cares.
00:33:43.000 | So when I left, I said, "Okay, how would I structure a new firm?"
00:33:48.000 | And the reality is if you survey the consumer-facing marketplace, I am not aware of a whole lot of people advocating,
00:33:56.000 | "Well, you should go and consult a commission-based financial advisor."
00:34:00.000 | The drum you hear being beaten in the personal finance space, which is what mainly consumers are hearing,
00:34:06.000 | is, "Go and consult a fee-only financial advisor. Go and consult a fee-only financial advisor."
00:34:10.000 | So I simply said, "Well, I'm in the process of setting something up new. I can make fee-only work for me.
00:34:16.000 | Let me take advantage of the marketing, the free publicity that fee-only has, and I'll just go ahead and step on that myself.
00:34:23.000 | And I'm happy to abide by those rules. I can do that because I'm going to be just as consistent and just as upright in a fee-only model as I was in a commission model or in a commission and fee model.
00:34:38.000 | But let me just take advantage of this marketing."
00:34:40.000 | So I just don't see anybody effectively talking about the reasons for differences.
00:34:47.000 | And so that's the answer to your question, is that it wasn't just to go to the fee-only model.
00:34:53.000 | Although I understand why people do, and I can happily live in that world, it was another reason.
00:34:57.000 | And I said, "Let me take advantage of the momentum."
00:34:59.000 | So there are a number of advisors, as you know, and you're probably one of them, that straddle both worlds.
00:35:05.000 | They have some clients that they charge commissions to and some clients they charge fees to.
00:35:10.000 | Where it does become slightly more problematic is when you're, I think the phrase used to be switching hats, you're dealing with the same client and one sale it's a commission and one sale it's a fee-based model.
00:35:25.000 | That becomes a little bit more problematic just in the messaging, I think.
00:35:29.000 | But I absolutely agree with you. I think that you can't, you know, I mean there are definitely times where a commission is perfectly suitable and better off for the client.
00:35:40.000 | But I do think it's all in the messaging.
00:35:44.000 | And I think advisors haven't done a very good job at talking about their fees.
00:35:51.000 | They don't like to talk about their fees, largely because their fees were based off of what their investment performance was.
00:35:57.000 | Right, exactly.
00:35:58.000 | They gave away financial plans. That was just a value added.
00:36:03.000 | So now it's very difficult to go back and say, "You know that plan I did for you five years ago? I'd like to do it again, except now I'm going to charge you $2,000 for it."
00:36:11.000 | Right.
00:36:12.000 | I also think, you know, and I'm just, stop me if I'm rambling here.
00:36:16.000 | I also think advisors, they don't value what they bring to the table as much as they should, frankly.
00:36:25.000 | And what they bring to the table, and it's hard to quantify, but is keeping a client from taking a third vacation.
00:36:34.000 | And the struggle that that will cause, you know, six months down the road when they're trying to pay their taxes on something.
00:36:40.000 | You know, it's like they have to get compensated for stopping clients from making bad mistakes.
00:36:46.000 | And that's very hard to kind of build a price model around.
00:36:49.000 | But the good ones do. The good ones have figured it out.
00:36:53.000 | I'm very much a believer in the power of the market.
00:36:57.000 | And in today's world, I personally don't see how anything can be hidden.
00:37:01.000 | You know, you were talking about the little white lie.
00:37:03.000 | If you say, "Sorry, I'm in a meeting," and all of a sudden somebody checks a Facebook feed and there you got tagged in the back picture.
00:37:10.000 | It will come back to haunt you. I absolutely agree with that.
00:37:12.000 | Right.
00:37:13.000 | You know, you cannot hide anything.
00:37:15.000 | So that's going to lead to a shakeup.
00:37:18.000 | And advisors that can't demonstrate their worth, I think, should be -- the market should speak and they should be out of the business.
00:37:25.000 | Or they should build their value and be able to demonstrate their value.
00:37:29.000 | And we all like to praise the free market in a conceptual sense when it's someone else's market.
00:37:35.000 | And then when it's our own market and light is being shined and consumers are speaking, we're having to retool and adapt and change and innovate.
00:37:43.000 | Then we get a little bit self-protective and we want to say, "Well, let's clamp down. Let's set up more rules."
00:37:49.000 | I say, "Bring it on and let's work to serve the clients that we serve.
00:37:53.000 | And let's do it using every tool that we can.
00:37:57.000 | And let's press and serve people better."
00:38:00.000 | Because now that I'm in an interesting position outside of the financial space and I'm in the media space now, it's fascinating to me to where I see,
00:38:10.000 | A, there is a massive demand for good financial advice.
00:38:14.000 | Absolutely.
00:38:15.000 | I get email after email and call after call after call from people saying, "How do I do this? I need help. How do I find help?"
00:38:25.000 | So there's a massive demand and there's some supply.
00:38:29.000 | And now we've got to make sure that that supply is clear, it's transparent as far as communicating what the effectiveness of it is,
00:38:36.000 | and connecting the demand and the supply together.
00:38:38.000 | I don't see how anybody can navigate the financial world that we live in as complex as it is without the services of an excellent financial advisor.
00:38:45.000 | So here's a huge problem though.
00:38:47.000 | The supply is shrinking.
00:38:50.000 | I mean, the number of advisors is not going up.
00:38:54.000 | It's going down.
00:38:55.000 | It's going up in the RIA space, right?
00:38:57.000 | But again, overall, it's going down.
00:39:00.000 | And you're a good example.
00:39:02.000 | It's a shame that you didn't stay in the business.
00:39:06.000 | You're a good example because you're a millennial.
00:39:09.000 | And that's exactly what this business isn't doing a good job of training and retaining people just like you.
00:39:17.000 | You left because the regulation landscape just didn't make sense to you.
00:39:21.000 | It's going to be a big problem because, like I said, 10,000 people stepping into retirement every single day.
00:39:29.000 | The demand, those people are most in need of financial advice, and they're going to have a harder and harder time finding a good financial advisor.
00:39:38.000 | So I think the industry itself has to look hard at that, has to solve that problem very quickly.
00:39:44.000 | They have to figure out how to keep people like you.
00:39:46.000 | When I say the industry, I mean the regulators as well, not just the firms.
00:39:51.000 | They have to look at how to keep people like you in the business that is thinking about how to communicate with the next generation.
00:39:58.000 | They're not thinking about it right now, but it's a huge problem.
00:40:02.000 | The supply of advisors is dwindling.
00:40:05.000 | You do your job and I'll do my job.
00:40:08.000 | Fred, thanks for coming on.
00:40:10.000 | Where do you want people to find you online?
00:40:12.000 | Investmentnews.com is our website.
00:40:15.000 | They should go there.
00:40:16.000 | Are you still publishing stories on there that they should look for your name and read your stories?
00:40:20.000 | I do. I publish an edit note every week.
00:40:22.000 | Perfect. Very cool.
00:40:23.000 | Thanks so much for coming on.
00:40:24.000 | Thank you.
00:40:27.000 | As far as I'm concerned, half of what you just heard in that interview applies to your industry.
00:40:33.000 | I hope that perhaps because it's coming from a different industry--
00:40:38.000 | Well, if you're a financial advisor, then definitely everything of what I just said applies to your industry.
00:40:43.000 | But if you're in an industry other than the industry of financial advice, I hope that you can take some of the ideas that we talked about and implement them in your industry.
00:40:54.000 | Because there is this inevitable societal transformation that is happening.
00:40:59.000 | This onward march where transparency and access and openness is being created and brought to every industry.
00:41:09.000 | As far as I'm concerned, it can't happen soon enough.
00:41:12.000 | It's a good thing.
00:41:13.000 | But you've got to make sure that you're ready to compete at this level.
00:41:20.000 | And that might take a little bit of homework if you haven't done it yet.
00:41:24.000 | So consider.
00:41:26.000 | Hopefully, you found some of those ideas useful.
00:41:28.000 | Hopefully, some of that background can be helpful to you.
00:41:30.000 | That is my goal.
00:41:31.000 | I thank you so much for listening.
00:41:33.000 | I have one more recording from the T3 conference which I'll be releasing for you next week.
00:41:40.000 | And it's a recording with Bill Winterberg from fppad.com.
00:41:43.000 | And it's an excellent recording.
00:41:45.000 | We talk also about the application of technology for marketing.
00:41:49.000 | And I think you'll also find that interesting whether you're in the financial advice industry or not within the financial advice industry.
00:41:54.000 | So thanks so much for listening.
00:41:56.000 | If you've gained benefit from this, please consider becoming a patron of the show.
00:41:59.000 | Details of that are at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
00:42:03.000 | You can see all of the bribes that I've set out to bribe you to support the show.
00:42:07.000 | Essentially, that's our crowdfunding campaign.
00:42:09.000 | In an effort to keep the show ad-free and keep advertising non-existent so that we can maintain our editorial independence.
00:42:17.000 | And also keep the lights on.
00:42:19.000 | That's why we've launched the crowdfunding campaign.
00:42:21.000 | Details of that at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
00:42:25.000 | By the way, keep an eye on the Twitter feed.
00:42:28.000 | Tomorrow's show, I might be doing a live Q&A.
00:42:33.000 | I might be doing a quick video stream.
00:42:35.000 | So make sure if you're not already, go to twitter.com/radicalpersonalfinance and follow the show there.
00:42:42.000 | And you might have an opportunity to see me do this Q&A show live.
00:42:46.000 | We'll see. No promise.
00:42:47.000 | But – well, you should follow anyway.
00:42:49.000 | Cheers, y'all. I'm out.
00:42:51.000 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:42:53.000 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.
00:43:00.000 | You can also connect with the show on Twitter @radicalpf and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance.
00:43:07.000 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.
00:43:14.000 | But your situation is unique, and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.
00:43:22.000 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy,
00:43:31.000 | and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs,
00:43:37.000 | your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
00:43:43.000 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.
00:43:50.000 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please help me by coming to the show page and commenting,
00:43:56.000 | so we can all learn together.
00:43:58.000 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
00:44:00.000 | The LA Kings Holiday Pack is back.
00:44:02.000 | The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life.
00:44:04.000 | A three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket.
00:44:09.000 | Buy today and you'll receive an additional game for free.
00:44:12.000 | Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today.