RPF0211-Bill_Winterberg_Interview
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00:00:30.200 | Radicals, let's talk about marketing today with my friend Bill Winterberg from FPPad.com.
00:00:35.600 | We're going to talk about marketing and using new media for marketing both a financial services practice and any type of business.
00:00:42.500 | Even though our conversation is going to focus on financial services, Bill is a financial planner.
00:00:46.700 | This is applicable to you.
00:00:49.900 | No matter your industry.
00:01:07.500 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:01:09.600 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:01:11.700 | Thank you so much for being here.
00:01:13.700 | Today is a very special day.
00:01:15.800 | Number one, I do have a really cool interview and I'm going to play that for you in a moment.
00:01:20.100 | But then also I want you to celebrate with me.
00:01:23.500 | Right before I hit record on the recorder, I just opened the Libsyn account and realized that we just crossed over 1 million downloads.
00:01:39.800 | I didn't plan it that way. I had just actually opened up the stats just to do something else real quick and all of a sudden, boom, there it was.
00:01:46.500 | I had expected it maybe next week.
00:01:48.000 | But super exciting today, June 25, 2015, Thursday.
00:01:52.500 | We just crossed over 1 million downloads for the show from all time.
00:01:55.600 | So I want to start with that and just simply say thank you to each and every one of you who is listening to me today.
00:02:02.200 | Thank you.
00:02:04.500 | It's an honor to have your time and your attention invested with me.
00:02:08.000 | And I promise to be a good steward with it.
00:02:11.000 | I promise to continue to work to bring you content that is going to help you.
00:02:16.200 | I promise to keep working hard to hopefully be your most valuable source of ideas and education and inspiration and encouragement and motivation and basically just a good friend to you on your journey to and through financial independence.
00:02:34.200 | That's the mission of this show where we talk about financial independence in all of its permutations.
00:02:39.200 | And it's been an awesome year, this last year that the show has been out there.
00:02:43.200 | It's been an awesome year and we're looking forward as we come up on the one-year anniversary of the show here at the end of June.
00:02:49.200 | July 1 was the day that I started it full time.
00:02:52.200 | It's just a super exciting milestone to hit, to be hitting a million downloads here right even before the one-year anniversary.
00:02:59.200 | So thank you.
00:03:01.200 | Thank you very, very much.
00:03:02.200 | So today I have an interview for you with Bill Winterberg.
00:03:05.200 | Bill is a really neat guy.
00:03:06.200 | He's a financial planner.
00:03:07.200 | But now his primary focus is in the financial planning media.
00:03:12.200 | You'll hear his story in the context of today's interview so I'm not going to talk about it too much.
00:03:16.200 | But I want you to listen carefully after we get through a little bit about Bill and his experience.
00:03:21.200 | I want you to listen carefully to our discussion on marketing.
00:03:25.200 | This interview was recorded a few months ago out in Dallas when I was out there for the T3 conference and we were sitting down in the lobby of the hotel doing this interview together.
00:03:35.200 | But I've been wanting to bring it to you, wanting to bring it to you.
00:03:38.200 | I didn't get it out to you quickly because I was building out the FinancialAdvisorPodcast.com website, and I'll mention that at the end of the show when I come back to close things out.
00:03:47.200 | But marketing is fundamentally important to you in your life and in your business.
00:03:54.200 | And marketing is changing faster than it's ever changed in the history of modern business practices.
00:04:01.200 | The ability for any individual to market products and services has never been easier.
00:04:07.200 | And it's very important to me that you stay on the cutting edge of marketing because there are very few more financially valuable skills than the skill of marketing.
00:04:17.200 | So pay attention to the content of today's show whether you're interested in financial planning or not.
00:04:23.200 | If you are a financial advisor, pay careful attention to our discussion about how to use new media and marketing.
00:04:28.200 | If you're not a financial advisor, learn the lessons from this discussion and transfer them over to your life.
00:04:35.200 | Here we go.
00:04:36.200 | Bill, welcome to the show.
00:04:39.200 | I appreciate your being with me.
00:04:40.200 | Thank you so much, Joshua.
00:04:42.200 | It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:04:43.200 | So I'm glad we finally got a chance to meet here at T3.
00:04:47.200 | And I've watched you work online for a little bit, specifically in the financial advisor space.
00:04:52.200 | I'd love for you to start by just telling your story with financial advice and then how you started creating the type of media that you work on now.
00:05:00.200 | Yeah, certainly.
00:05:01.200 | The things that I do today with FPPad.com is I want to be a go-to resource that advisors have to stay informed about what's happening in technology that matters to their business.
00:05:12.200 | There's a lot of news, a lot of updates, a lot of innovations.
00:05:15.200 | And if it's hard for me to keep up with the pace of change, I know that advisors have very little chance about staying up to date with things that are going on.
00:05:25.200 | So I'm trying to distill the important stories and use media and use videos and podcasts and other things like what you're doing online and what other people do online to be seen and viewed as a trusted independent source of those news and updates.
00:05:41.200 | And the reason I got into audio and video production is I actually went to school for it back in college.
00:05:48.200 | Wow.
00:05:49.200 | So my dream was to run the sound boards on a cruise ship, if you can believe it.
00:05:55.200 | So that was my high school.
00:05:57.200 | I'm going to graduate.
00:05:58.200 | I'm going to go to school for audio engineering and run the boards and travel the world.
00:06:03.200 | That was the idea.
00:06:04.200 | Then reality sets in, and because of some fortunate events, I was able to get into the Hewlett Packard printer industry, riding some basic software drivers.
00:06:15.200 | And I received a phone call from a gentleman who hired my, at the time, girlfriend to do some babysitting.
00:06:22.200 | He had contacted me knowing that I was going to college for audio engineering.
00:06:26.200 | He said, "We're creating this new toy, and we'd like it to have rich music and good instruments inside.
00:06:33.200 | Would you like to join us?"
00:06:34.200 | And I said, "Yeah, sure."
00:06:36.200 | And my family said, "You're an idiot.
00:06:38.200 | You're leaving Hewlett Packard, this Silicon Valley pinnacle business, for a no-name startup."
00:06:43.200 | Well, that startup happened to be LeapFrog Toys.
00:06:46.200 | So I was brought on board to help with the instrument set formation, to create that rich instrument library, and I ended up working there for seven years.
00:06:55.200 | Now, while I was there, LeapFrog went public in the middle of the dot-com crash.
00:07:01.200 | But LeapFrog was a Wall Street darling.
00:07:03.200 | They had a product.
00:07:05.200 | They weren't just a website to order dog food.
00:07:07.200 | They had a product.
00:07:08.200 | They grew from, at the time, I was maybe employee number 18 or 19, and they grew to 500, 600 employees in a few years.
00:07:15.200 | So they were doing great.
00:07:17.200 | And they went public in 2001, and all the phone calls start coming in from the brokers, the wirehouses.
00:07:24.200 | "Hey, we want to help you out with your wealth management needs.
00:07:28.200 | Give us a call.
00:07:30.200 | Come to our office."
00:07:31.200 | And I said, "You know, this is the pigs being led to slaughter."
00:07:35.200 | So why don't I self-educate, learn about all the IRS rules, alternative minimum tax, non-qualified options, yada, yada.
00:07:42.200 | Pretty soon, I became a trusted guy that my colleagues went to to learn about this stuff.
00:07:48.200 | I didn't have a sales agenda.
00:07:49.200 | I wasn't trying to push any product.
00:07:51.200 | I just wanted to help everybody make good choices with their new money.
00:07:56.200 | And I saw that as the opportunity because LeapFrog was kind of like Apple was back in the '80s.
00:08:02.200 | They had a huge blockbuster hit.
00:08:04.200 | LeapFrog had the LeapPad learning system and all the books and cartridges that went with it.
00:08:08.200 | But there was no follow-on product.
00:08:10.200 | So just as quickly as they reached the pinnacle, they started going downhill quickly.
00:08:14.200 | So I was prepared for a career change.
00:08:18.200 | And I decided, "You know, I really like being a trusted source of crazy financial ramifications.
00:08:25.200 | Why don't I try to get into financial services?"
00:08:27.200 | So I left Silicon Valley.
00:08:29.200 | I joined my wife, who had moved to Baltimore for med school, and got involved with a broker-dealer as a rep.
00:08:35.200 | And I lasted all of nine months.
00:08:37.200 | When it coincided really well with my wife's graduation from medical school, we moved to Portland, Oregon, where she went to residency.
00:08:45.200 | And that's where I discovered independence.
00:08:47.200 | I started my own state-registered RIA.
00:08:49.200 | I worked with the residents and fellows in the hospital because they were making peanuts, $35,000 a year, $40,000 a year.
00:08:57.200 | And they were working 80, 90, 100 hours a week.
00:09:00.200 | So they're basically getting $2 or $3 an hour when you do the math.
00:09:03.200 | But their income triples or quadruples after they're complete with their residency.
00:09:09.200 | And I felt passionate about helping them set a good foundation at that time so that when the money did arrive, they weren't making poor decisions with their higher income.
00:09:22.200 | And I started that business.
00:09:24.200 | That was when the cloud was starting to mature.
00:09:27.200 | You could get a cloud CRM.
00:09:29.200 | You could put documents online.
00:09:31.200 | And I built my business to be pretty mobile and portable back in '06 to '09.
00:09:35.200 | And I figured, you know, if I can do that for my business and scale and be portable and run it from anywhere, I bet that financial advisors can benefit from that too.
00:09:45.200 | So in 2009, it coincided with yet another move.
00:09:49.200 | If you're listening, this is what happens when physicians go through training is you move a lot.
00:09:53.200 | We moved from Portland, Oregon, to Dallas, Texas, where we lived for another three years for a fellowship program.
00:09:59.200 | And that's when I started FPPad.com.
00:10:01.200 | I was committed to making FPPad.com the go-to place to learn about technology changes for financial services.
00:10:09.200 | And that's what I've been doing ever since.
00:10:11.200 | And I've had one more move.
00:10:12.200 | Once again, if you're paying attention, this is life as a spouse to a physician.
00:10:16.200 | We now live in Atlanta, Georgia.
00:10:18.200 | We moved in 2012.
00:10:19.200 | And business has been very good because technology was moving quickly back in '09 and 2010, but not a lot of people were buying.
00:10:27.200 | People were just trying to preserve their businesses in the wake of the financial crisis.
00:10:32.200 | But since 2011, 2012, and the general recovery, we're starting to see tons of money coming into the industry, lots of innovation.
00:10:41.200 | And advisors, it presents lots of opportunity if they know what opportunities to take advantage of.
00:10:47.200 | So that's my story about why FPPad exists, how I got from audio engineering on a boat to using that skill that I had learned 15 years ago to make video productions and make video broadcasts.
00:11:02.200 | Because I like being able to use some of those skills that I picked up 15 and 20 years ago to spreading the good word about technology today.
00:11:10.200 | Do you still run a financial advisory practice?
00:11:12.200 | I don't.
00:11:13.200 | I shut down my RIA, my registered investment advisory firm, in 2009 so I could go full-time into consulting with FPPad.
00:11:20.200 | And when you originally started FPPad, was it just as a hobby for fun?
00:11:25.200 | Was it intended to be a business?
00:11:28.200 | I think there was a hybrid.
00:11:31.200 | I knew that because I was moving around, I have to essentially start from scratch in each new city.
00:11:37.200 | So with the ability to publish online and be viewed as just a slow marinating source that if two people read a story and they shared it with two more people, then it becomes four and it just grows on the audience.
00:11:54.200 | That was my purpose is to have some good resources about tips and tricks to be efficient and be productive inside a financial advisor's business day in and day out.
00:12:06.200 | And that's grown because advisors are looking for resources on how can I serve more clients?
00:12:12.200 | How can I give more people planning without adding significant overhead to my business?
00:12:17.200 | How can I be more efficient?
00:12:19.200 | Now it's how can I be mobile?
00:12:21.200 | How can I be secure?
00:12:22.200 | How can I go to the cloud?
00:12:24.200 | So it started out as information sharing and obviously as my profile grew, people viewed me as a trusted consultant.
00:12:32.200 | So they would hire me.
00:12:34.200 | Let's talk about specific opportunities.
00:12:36.200 | Let's talk about specific tools.
00:12:38.200 | And it became a business and it's grown pretty well.
00:12:41.200 | How is it structured?
00:12:43.200 | So it's financially productive now.
00:12:45.200 | Is it financially productive based on advertising, on private consulting, and it's basically a marketing platform for you?
00:12:50.200 | How does your actual business work?
00:12:52.200 | I have, as any good certified financial planner advises, I have a good diversity in income and revenue.
00:13:01.200 | So I do run selective advertising on the website and I also run advertising in the video, but it's very limited.
00:13:10.200 | So I have one advertiser per video.
00:13:12.200 | I have one sidebar ad on my blog.
00:13:15.200 | I have no pop-ups.
00:13:17.200 | I have yet to use an advertiser in an email.
00:13:20.200 | So it's not a huge revenue generator, but it supports the website hosting.
00:13:25.200 | It supports the video production.
00:13:27.200 | And it supports the choice of spending time in a studio, creating a script, and going through that process when I could be working with a firm or I could be working with a vendor, earning some consulting money.
00:13:40.200 | So I do have the advertising that supports the production.
00:13:43.200 | I do consulting with individual advisors as well as technology vendors in this space.
00:13:49.200 | I'm a sought-after speaker to speak about technology.
00:13:52.200 | So conferences hire me and bring me in to provide some presentations.
00:13:57.200 | And I do something else.
00:13:58.200 | It escapes me at the moment.
00:14:00.200 | Well, we're here at T3.
00:14:02.200 | There's two versions of T3, the advisor conference that's been running for 10 years.
00:14:06.200 | There's a new enterprise conference targeted for enterprise financial firms, banks, broker-dealers, and large nationwide registered investment advisory firms.
00:14:16.200 | So I'm involved in helping grow that event.
00:14:19.200 | And so the profits that come off that event are also additional into the FPPad business.
00:14:26.200 | One of the debates that I've been having here at T3 with other advisors is the changing face of marketing.
00:14:33.200 | Traditionally, I think marketing in our business was limited.
00:14:38.200 | I've heard many respected speakers simply say, "Marketing doesn't work.
00:14:43.200 | Prospecting works."
00:14:44.200 | And so just ignore marketing and prospecting is the only thing you need to focus on.
00:14:49.200 | But even just last night was having a vigorous debate about this with some other advisors.
00:14:55.200 | And I'm curious on your take.
00:14:56.200 | What do you see happening with financial advisor marketing?
00:14:58.200 | What I see happening with financial advisor marketing is the desire by prospects to be able to discover someone that they can relate with,
00:15:11.200 | someone that they feel they can have a relationship with, because the tables have turned.
00:15:16.200 | Dan Pink writes his book about we're in a world where there's no longer information asymmetry.
00:15:25.200 | It's now information parity.
00:15:27.200 | So when you—we heard this morning about buying a car, the car buying experience.
00:15:32.200 | What do consumers do?
00:15:34.200 | They research everything online.
00:15:36.200 | When they arrive at the dealership, the consumer knows more information about that specific car than the salesperson knows.
00:15:44.200 | That's happening in financial services.
00:15:47.200 | Anyone can find all the information they want about financial planning and wealth management online.
00:15:53.200 | But for those who want a trusted partner and someone aligned with their goals and helping them manage their needs and their growth and their desires,
00:16:03.200 | they want somebody they can have a sincere conversation with.
00:16:06.200 | So now the—how that affects marketing is I would want advisors to be more personable, be a human being, be relatable.
00:16:17.200 | And we're seeing competition from online investment services, which their business model exists to completely eliminate the purpose of a person.
00:16:27.200 | In fact, if you go to their websites and you read everything about their services, there's really no human beings involved.
00:16:33.200 | There are a few like Personal Capital and LearnVest that have employees that are full-time advisors.
00:16:39.200 | But still, if you go to those sites, you can't find anything about the people that they have.
00:16:45.200 | So for advisors, the opportunity is show who you are, show your firm, show your people, make it front and center.
00:16:53.200 | It starts with photos, at least good photos, but then it evolves into podcasting.
00:16:59.200 | Allow a prospect or consumer to hear how passionate you are about serving a specific niche of clients.
00:17:07.200 | Learn—have that person learn and hear how passionate you are about appropriate tax planning.
00:17:14.200 | And then that can go for the most adventurous advisors into video production.
00:17:19.200 | Now, in addition to hearing how passionate you are, you get to see them how passionate they are.
00:17:24.200 | The risk is if you do video poorly, then a lot of prospects say, "Wow, that advisor just is not really good at all."
00:17:33.200 | So advisors have the opportunity to not just open up their smartphone and take a video, but think about why I'm going to create it
00:17:40.200 | and how much practice should I have in rehearsal so that I really communicate my message clearly and effectively to the person who's watching it.
00:17:48.200 | That's where the financial advisor marketing is going.
00:17:51.200 | And when you create that content, you can kind of blast it out on social media, Twitter, make a Facebook page, LinkedIn.
00:17:57.200 | There's lots of debates of where you'll have success and where you should ignore.
00:18:00.200 | But as a content creator, the content is what connects you with a prospective client.
00:18:08.200 | They want to know you. They want to get a sense of who you are.
00:18:12.200 | And I feel that podcasts and video content does that very effectively.
00:18:17.200 | One of the challenges, however, in implementing it and trying to decide is how do you measure when you're actually going to take up a new client?
00:18:30.200 | That's the major concern of many advisors.
00:18:33.200 | "Okay, I'm going to do this work. I'm going to start making videos. I'm going to start making podcasts. I'm going to start writing.
00:18:38.200 | How long is it going to take me to bring on a new client because of this?"
00:18:44.200 | How would you respond to that question from an advisor?
00:18:48.200 | That's a tough one. I'm a little -- the first thing that comes to mind is I really don't care.
00:18:56.200 | Right. Why not?
00:18:58.200 | You do it because most advisors operate in a fiduciary capacity.
00:19:06.200 | It's legalese for trying to do what's right for people.
00:19:09.200 | And if they're really passionate about doing that, can't you carve out some time to create content that helps people?
00:19:17.200 | Solve some issues. Answer some questions. And put it out there.
00:19:21.200 | And slowly over time, people begin to seek that information.
00:19:26.200 | Just like they're looking for information on the next car that they might buy or lease,
00:19:30.200 | they may look for information about whatever financial thing that they're concerned about.
00:19:36.200 | And they stumble across it.
00:19:38.200 | They find it's relevant. They might share it with somebody else.
00:19:41.200 | So it's a bit more guerrilla than trying to create this gigantic formal platform.
00:19:46.200 | But that's because that's the approach that I've had.
00:19:49.200 | I think that a big platform could equally be successful if it's well thought out and well positioned.
00:19:55.200 | But do it because you like it, not because you're trying to measure the dollars and cents of it.
00:20:03.200 | ROI is important, but do this because you're passionate about helping people and doing something positive for the industry.
00:20:09.200 | I think that's my perspective on it.
00:20:11.200 | And the rewards, the dividends should come with it.
00:20:16.200 | So do it because you care, not because you see dollar signs with it.
00:20:22.200 | Makes sense.
00:20:24.200 | I see an additional opportunity that I have never heard anyone talk about, and I'll share it with you.
00:20:29.200 | There's almost two different markets for multimedia content.
00:20:35.200 | There's the external market, meaning if I'm a financial advisor in West Palm Beach,
00:20:41.200 | it's really nice if somebody goes to a web search engine and types in "financial advisor West Palm Beach,"
00:20:47.200 | maybe my name can show up in the top ten results. That's great.
00:20:50.200 | And that's important.
00:20:52.200 | The reality is I don't have much of a relationship there with that person, and that will develop over time.
00:20:57.200 | So if I am creating content that will allow them to understand who I am as a person,
00:21:02.200 | they can build some comfort level that goes beyond six static pages on a website, which is a good start.
00:21:08.200 | But we can do a little bit better than that.
00:21:10.200 | But the flip side is I think the production of multimedia is a simple continuation of what we've always done in the financial advisor marketplace.
00:21:20.200 | When I was trained, I started my financial advice career with Northwestern Mutual.
00:21:25.200 | So I was trained in the Al Granum building of financial services clientele model, the one-card system.
00:21:31.200 | And so in that model, very traditional insurance sales model, you start with a list of 200 names,
00:21:37.200 | and you work your way through those 200 names, and you ask for referrals to other people, you call them, and you build.
00:21:44.200 | Well, one of the interesting things that happens in Al Granum's day and time,
00:21:48.200 | the only way that you could connect with those people that were in your database,
00:21:51.200 | and the goal was you got to about 1,000 people in what he called your one-card file.
00:21:55.200 | This is back in the '50s, something like that.
00:21:57.200 | And it was brilliant, but you would call twice a year, and you would go out for a birthday lunch,
00:22:01.200 | and you would go out for an age-change lunch.
00:22:03.200 | And today, that I think still works and still applies.
00:22:08.200 | The reality is I don't pick up my phone anymore unless it's a scheduled call and I know who it is.
00:22:14.200 | I screen everything.
00:22:15.200 | And it's really tough for me with my busy life to want to go out to lunch.
00:22:19.200 | But what happened over the years is I built my system with the one-card system.
00:22:24.200 | I wound up meeting all these people.
00:22:26.200 | And then when I met all these people, and one of the bits of data that I would ask from them is I would get their email address.
00:22:32.200 | Then I would get their email address.
00:22:34.200 | I'd plug it in my phone.
00:22:35.200 | I would use my phone, and it would synchronize with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, whatever.
00:22:41.200 | They would show up.
00:22:42.200 | Well, now we're connected there.
00:22:44.200 | So in this scenario, I'm on a radar screen with these people that I've met.
00:22:50.200 | And now if I'm creating interesting content, I'm creating useful materials,
00:22:54.200 | then now in a very passive way within the circle of influence I have with people I've personally met,
00:23:00.200 | then now I'm helping those people on an ongoing basis.
00:23:04.200 | And that is so--it is taking the idea of what Al Granum invented years ago to say,
00:23:12.200 | "How can I talk to my clients twice a year and keep this relationship?"
00:23:15.200 | And the idea that financial advisors have done of making a quarterly telephone call and enhancing it and amping that up
00:23:22.200 | so that when a client is going through--or a prospective client is going through a life transition,
00:23:27.200 | you're on their radar screen as a trusted advisor.
00:23:30.200 | And nobody's talking about that.
00:23:31.200 | Everyone's talking about just the external focus of how do I rank on Google.
00:23:35.200 | Fine. That's cool.
00:23:36.200 | That's--I think it's probably really valuable.
00:23:38.200 | But ignore ranking on Google and talk about how can I serve the social network,
00:23:44.200 | not necessarily just the online social network, my actual social network effectively
00:23:49.200 | and be an encouragement and a teacher to them.
00:23:51.200 | I mean, am I right?
00:23:55.200 | Am I thinking?
00:23:56.200 | Do you see that opportunity?
00:23:57.200 | It speaks exactly to my passion about do it because you care.
00:24:00.200 | Do it because you're trying to provide education, training, awareness, whatever discussion in an open and honest fashion.
00:24:08.200 | And it's great that it's scalable because you post a video, you post a podcast,
00:24:13.200 | and it has the potential to reach thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands
00:24:18.200 | depending on your influence and your audience.
00:24:21.200 | But it's still fine if it reaches 50 clients or 25 clients.
00:24:26.200 | They would not have otherwise consumed information or learned something,
00:24:31.200 | and now you're offering that value add.
00:24:33.200 | So I think you're exactly correct.
00:24:35.200 | The wrong or my least preferred reason to get into media production is to rank on Google.
00:24:43.200 | I agree with you. That's all well and good, and it's a great side benefit.
00:24:46.200 | But do it because you care.
00:24:48.200 | Do it because you know you can help people add value and interpret complicated things about money
00:24:55.200 | and help address those weird, crazy behavioral things that all of us do with our financial decisions,
00:25:02.200 | help provide some value and guidance so that people are doing the right thing with their money.
00:25:07.200 | In your experience, why are more advisors not currently taking advantage of these tools
00:25:13.200 | and, I guess, marketing channels and methods that currently exist?
00:25:17.200 | I think there's a combination of reasons.
00:25:20.200 | Number one, it's hard. It requires work.
00:25:23.200 | So as an advisor, I don't want to generalize, but it's great to be in my office
00:25:29.200 | and have clients come in every 90 minutes and handshake, "How are you doing?
00:25:34.200 | Here's the report that we did. Rinse, lather, repeat."
00:25:37.200 | Once you have a sustainable business, it's a pretty easy routine and a pretty comfortable routine to get into.
00:25:46.200 | So it is hard. It takes work to deviate from that and decide,
00:25:51.200 | "I'm going to carve out a few hours of my day, set up some microphones, create some podcasts,
00:25:57.200 | and I mess up all the time. I say 'uh,' my mouth dries out, and I have to spend more time doing it."
00:26:03.200 | It's hard. It's hard.
00:26:05.200 | So one needs to make a commitment of, "I'm going to make a habit change and go do it."
00:26:10.200 | And I think a lot of advisors opt to go the path of least resistance, which is,
00:26:14.200 | "My clients don't need podcasts. My clients don't ask me for videos.
00:26:20.200 | So I'm going to just choose the comfortable path and do what I've always done in my business."
00:26:26.200 | That's the easy way out.
00:26:28.200 | But advisors are hearing more and more about threats to their business and prospects
00:26:34.200 | not being able to discern the difference between an online investment service and a "financial advisor."
00:26:43.200 | What's the difference?
00:26:44.200 | I can pay a super low fee for this portfolio that's managed by an algorithm and probably does it pretty effectively.
00:26:52.200 | Why should I pay four times that fee for an "financial advisor" who basically does the same thing?
00:26:59.200 | So there's a lack of differentiation from the consumer perspective,
00:27:03.200 | and I think advisors are starting to gain awareness because advisors say,
00:27:09.200 | "Rattle the cage. We do so much more. We're not just investment allocators.
00:27:14.200 | There's this whole relationship, the behavior, your goals, the total picture that you're not getting at the discount places."
00:27:22.200 | But advisors are choosing the easy route.
00:27:26.200 | They're not updating their websites. They're not providing interactive content.
00:27:30.200 | They're not telling people why they're different.
00:27:34.200 | So there's awareness that is slowly, I think, encroaching into the industry.
00:27:38.200 | And I hope advisors take the cue and understand that it is important to carve out some time each week, each day,
00:27:46.200 | whatever their strategy is, and offer themselves as a different and elevated and more value-add provider
00:27:54.200 | that is worth a difference of fee.
00:27:58.200 | And the prospect should be able to recognize that.
00:28:01.200 | They're going to get basically no service at a low price,
00:28:05.200 | but these advisors, these financial planners, they're talking about my total picture.
00:28:10.200 | They're talking about my behavior.
00:28:12.200 | They're hand-holding, for lack of a better word or phrase, that when I get nervous,
00:28:17.200 | when I see the stock market get all volatile and rocky,
00:28:21.200 | hopefully I have the ability to talk with somebody about it and say, "You know what? I'm nervous,
00:28:26.200 | but before I pull the trigger, let's have a sounding board, a discussion.
00:28:32.200 | If we need to take some money off the table, we can talk about that.
00:28:35.200 | But if I'm overreacting, we can talk about that.
00:28:38.200 | Or if I need to make changes in my lifestyle, we can talk about that."
00:28:42.200 | It's all about compromise.
00:28:43.200 | I can't compromise with a computer. It doesn't know how.
00:28:46.200 | I can compromise with a person because you can listen to me and just give me some advice.
00:28:53.200 | It's not perfect, but it's a good debate.
00:28:56.200 | It's good discussion.
00:28:57.200 | And I think that a computer will never be able to offer that.
00:29:02.200 | Many advisors, when the market is crashing, will tell stories of whichever particular day it was
00:29:09.200 | that there's a massive point drop of spending all day long on the telephone.
00:29:13.200 | And what has always struck me as funny about that is, A, and I recognize, yes,
00:29:20.200 | you need to spend all day on the telephone on those days.
00:29:24.200 | But maybe with a little bit more planning and forethought, there could be fewer telephone calls.
00:29:30.200 | And also, if it's important on that day, how much more important is it a month earlier
00:29:36.200 | and six months earlier and a year earlier to be preparing for that day
00:29:41.200 | and to be sharing the things that you're thinking about that you're going to be saying on that day?
00:29:46.200 | One of our primary jobs as advisors, I see, especially in the investment management space,
00:29:51.200 | is helping clients prepare for what's coming.
00:29:54.200 | And not that I can't--I certainly can't predict the specific numerical adjustment,
00:30:00.200 | but you can get a good sense of where things are going.
00:30:03.200 | But that's not a scalable business practice to be able to sit down and say,
00:30:07.200 | "Well, every day I'm going to spend an hour on the phone with every client,"
00:30:10.200 | or, "Every week I'm going to spend an hour on the phone with every client."
00:30:13.200 | But with media, it used to be, yeah, you had to go down to the AM radio station
00:30:18.200 | and buy a one-hour time slot, and maybe that was good, but the price was so expensive,
00:30:23.200 | you had to get new clients for it.
00:30:24.200 | But today, you can do that for practically free.
00:30:28.200 | You spend a little bit of money and you get really high quality,
00:30:31.200 | but you can sit down with your phone and you can record an audio file
00:30:34.200 | and you can host it online for free,
00:30:36.200 | and you can allow the clients that want to hear your thoughts on what's going on this week to have that.
00:30:40.200 | That is powerful.
00:30:42.200 | And shame on us if we ignore that and only spend time in a reactionary environment
00:30:48.200 | on the phone all day on that difficult day and we haven't done the work up front.
00:30:54.200 | What do you think about how do we get it done in a compliant way?
00:30:59.200 | Because that's one of the other challenges in creating media.
00:31:02.200 | Do you have any advice for navigating those especially who are behind some pretty big walls sometimes
00:31:09.200 | navigating that path between compliance and interesting content?
00:31:13.200 | Yeah, certainly.
00:31:15.200 | The environments that advisors work under are somewhat complicated.
00:31:20.200 | If an advisor finds that their parent organization and their compliance department is not receptive to this,
00:31:27.200 | it matters a lot to that advisor and the growth prospects of their business.
00:31:31.200 | An advisor needs to think about,
00:31:34.200 | "Is my firm positioned where it needs to be to take advantage of these opportunities
00:31:40.200 | where we can grow and do it the way I would like to?
00:31:43.200 | Or am I receiving pushback from a parent company or a parent organization that's really beyond my control?
00:31:50.200 | Is that an environment where that advisor wants to be?"
00:31:54.200 | And that's a key decision because podcast videos,
00:31:59.200 | they weren't a part of the vernacular 10 years ago.
00:32:04.200 | It wasn't an issue for compliance departments.
00:32:07.200 | Now it's an issue but it's also an opportunity.
00:32:10.200 | So for those parent organizations that prohibit it and put up huge barriers to using it,
00:32:17.200 | it matters much more today for that advisor to think,
00:32:20.200 | "Is my parent company on my side or are they protecting the parent company?"
00:32:27.200 | So fortunately, independence is an option for many advisors where they wear the compliance hat
00:32:34.200 | or they employ somebody who wears the compliance hat or they choose an outsourced compliance agency.
00:32:40.200 | Find someone who understands the rules and can create a program in which an advisor can successfully use media.
00:32:49.200 | What does that mean?
00:32:51.200 | You probably shouldn't open up a podcast talking about day trading and stock signals and option strategies that matter today.
00:33:01.200 | It's probably not a successful theme of content with respect to compliance.
00:33:08.200 | Huge red flags.
00:33:09.200 | But if you talk about things that you and I are talking about, about behavior and goal setting and discussions and dialogue and smart choices,
00:33:18.200 | and then can provide education which is well-researched, thought out, where you understand tax laws,
00:33:24.200 | you understand estate laws, and then throw in the disclaimers,
00:33:28.200 | "Look, I don't know every audience person's specific situation. Please consult."
00:33:32.200 | This is not advice. It's resources about IRS code and things.
00:33:37.200 | Consult an advisor and have those disclaimers.
00:33:39.200 | I think that environment allows independent advisors to really take advantage of this.
00:33:45.200 | They need to produce with compliance in mind so that they're not violating rules of touting performance or recommending pump and dump scams or whatever.
00:33:56.200 | Things that are huge red flags for compliance.
00:33:58.200 | There's a lot of ways to create intelligent content that does not raise any red flags for compliance.
00:34:04.200 | Anyone who says, "Oh, I can't podcast because compliance says no," I think they're punting it.
00:34:11.200 | They're just giving up, and they're going the path of least resistance.
00:34:15.200 | "Oh, I'll blame compliance," whereas an entrepreneurial-minded advisor can say, "Well, this is an opportunity to work within the regulatory framework
00:34:25.200 | because unfortunately there's bad apples that rip people off because they have a broadcast that promotes really crappy investments or whatever.
00:34:35.200 | There's bad people out there. That's why the regulatory rules exist."
00:34:39.200 | But advisors can view that as the opportunity.
00:34:42.200 | I'm happy to work within the regulatory rules and provide value to my audience and use that perspective, I think, that can be very successful.
00:34:50.200 | Last question.
00:34:51.200 | We're here at T3.
00:34:52.200 | You've been coming to these for a few years, and you have your pulse on the changing technology.
00:35:01.200 | It just seems to me like this is a constant theme here this year.
00:35:05.200 | Has it been that way for a long time, or is this a new theme?
00:35:09.200 | What would be your assessment with a little bit more historical perspective?
00:35:11.200 | Yeah, the financial crisis put the brakes on technology updates at firms nationwide.
00:35:18.200 | Firms were just in survival mode.
00:35:21.200 | So there weren't new businesses, no new technology, or very little technology innovation for the past couple of years, from '08 to maybe 2010 or 2011.
00:35:31.200 | Then the spigot started opening, and we're seeing advances in technology.
00:35:36.200 | Cloud-based systems and APIs or programming interfaces allows two systems to connect with one another pretty quickly and seamlessly and efficiently.
00:35:46.200 | That wasn't possible when an advisor's tools were on their server.
00:35:51.200 | It was very hard to connect their servers to somebody else's server and get the data to speak with one another.
00:35:57.200 | So technology from cloud services, online services, APIs, mobile devices, it's really opening up the spigot of how much technology gets into the advisor's space.
00:36:08.200 | And even on the business-to-consumer side, we've talked about these online investment services where they charge a really low fee.
00:36:17.200 | You, as a customer, answer 10 questions about your "risk," and they spit out a portfolio that they will automatically invest you in.
00:36:27.200 | That's all fine, well, and good, and they're beginning to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and billions of dollars in customer assets.
00:36:36.200 | And now, again, we've got that positioning concern of consumers view these services as not any different from an advisor.
00:36:44.200 | But the advisor's four times the cost or five times the cost, so I'm just going to go with the cheaper option.
00:36:50.200 | And so the advisor, the opportunity that they're learning about here at the T3 conference is how they can complement their business.
00:37:00.200 | They're still, advisors will have the bread and butter personal relationship, 75 basis points or 1% of assets or however they bill because it's kind of an expensive service model because of how personal and one-on-one it is.
00:37:17.200 | But they realize and see the opportunity, "I can now open up access to our business and our intelligence and our advisors on a limited scope, and I can do it at the price that the online providers are doing."
00:37:31.200 | And the key is the technology that they're learning about here at the T3 conference.
00:37:36.200 | This technology for advisors to implement these solutions, these low-cost investment platforms, they did not exist for advisors three years ago.
00:37:45.200 | But now there are nearly a dozen solutions and more coming out with good features and lower and lower price points.
00:37:53.200 | That is good.
00:37:54.200 | What I'm very passionate about is every man, woman, and child in the nation and in the world, arguably, but those in the nation getting access to affordable advice that's in their best interest.
00:38:09.200 | So with advisors leveraging technology and being able to open up to everyone who can benefit from it, that is a good thing.
00:38:17.200 | It pains me that advisors set minimums of a million dollars or $500,000.
00:38:23.200 | It's because they haven't figured out how to offer a profitable service plan.
00:38:28.200 | Not everybody goes to a steakhouse for dinner seven nights a week.
00:38:32.200 | Some people just want a hamburger for $4 or $3.
00:38:36.200 | It's the same with financial services.
00:38:38.200 | There are plenty of people that want the steakhouse experience, but some people just need a hamburger.
00:38:43.200 | They just need a combo meal to do three things in the next six months so that you have an emergency fund, you pay off your credit cards, and that you're adequately insured.
00:38:53.200 | That should not cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
00:38:56.200 | That should be something that is low-cost, it's scalable, because it's straightforward.
00:39:01.200 | It's not the steakhouse experience, but it is good, independent, unbiased advice that should be accessible to everyone.
00:39:09.200 | FPPad.com, any other projects you want to talk about or anywhere else you want people to find you?
00:39:14.200 | Yeah, what I've learned with FPPad.com and the video production is that it's important to have coaching and training and a reason to create these videos.
00:39:23.200 | So I've launched with my executive producer, Steve Bierman, a program called Building Trust Online.
00:39:29.200 | That's at buildingtrustonline.com.
00:39:31.200 | We've got a private beta period where we're coaching people in front of the camera, kind of in that shark tank experience.
00:39:38.200 | And we're going to roll that out to an online do-it-yourself program so anyone can stand up in his or her home or in the home office and record yourself on camera, look at it, review it, and do a bunch of other exercises.
00:39:51.200 | So you get the repetitions in, you get the practice, because the worst time for coaching is when you sit in front of the microphone.
00:39:57.200 | The worst time is when you sit in front of the green screen with the bright lights.
00:40:01.200 | That is not the opportunity for coaching.
00:40:03.200 | It is long before that, because it's the same with baseball.
00:40:06.200 | You're not going to hit a home run on opening day.
00:40:08.200 | You've got to go through spring training.
00:40:10.200 | That's why they have that.
00:40:12.200 | So we're creating a spring training experience with Building Trust Online, not only for financial professionals, but anyone who's looking to leverage this opportunity.
00:40:20.200 | I need to get into your beta program, because I've focused on audio podcasting because I thought that was helpful, and I've gotten a lot better at it.
00:40:28.200 | But I'm just starting to learn video, and it's challenging.
00:40:32.200 | For those of us who aren't in front of the camera, man, I can see the value of a good coaching program.
00:40:37.200 | It's absolutely challenging.
00:40:39.200 | It's difficult.
00:40:40.200 | There's no blueprint.
00:40:41.200 | You can't expect to nail it on the first time that you do it.
00:40:45.200 | But investing in yourself and maximizing the opportunity is going to lead to a lifetime of rewards.
00:40:52.200 | Bill, thanks for coming on.
00:40:53.200 | I appreciate it.
00:40:54.200 | Thank you so much.
00:40:55.200 | Now, it's time to put some of that stuff into action, and here are my final closing suggestions for you.
00:41:03.200 | Number one, if you are interested in video, go and check out Bill's video course, BuildingTrustOnline.com.
00:41:11.200 | That would be a great place to start.
00:41:13.200 | Check out what he's offering there in the course and see if it's appropriate to you.
00:41:17.200 | No matter your business, no matter your product, no matter your service, you need to incorporate video into that in some way.
00:41:26.200 | And yes, I know that even I haven't done very much video with Radical Personal Finance.
00:41:31.200 | It's been a staged approach.
00:41:32.200 | I've chosen to focus on audio first.
00:41:34.200 | But if you look at our culture, there is a massive shift going on.
00:41:39.200 | And if you're not present in some way, marketing your products and services through video, whether it's simple how-tos, whether it's simple tutorials, whether it's an ongoing relationship, there are a variety of ways to structure it.
00:41:50.200 | But you need to be doing it, and it's never been easier than it is now to do high-quality video right from a phone, right from a smartphone, to edit it, to push it out on YouTube.
00:42:01.200 | You've got to be learning and applying those techniques.
00:42:03.200 | That is a major focus of mine.
00:42:05.200 | As I'm getting some things squared away on the audio, I am going to be doing more video, thing number one.
00:42:09.200 | Thing number two, look at other venues as well.
00:42:12.200 | So as an example, audio is incredibly important.
00:42:16.200 | The reason why I sat on Bill's interview here for a few months since I've recorded it was because I was building out the website and the work that I wanted to do for a new info product that I want to launch called the Financial Advisor Podcast.
00:42:29.200 | If you are interested in details on that, go to financialadvisorpodcast.com.
00:42:35.200 | All that's there is just a simple short little video and a capture box for your email.
00:42:41.200 | Put your email in there.
00:42:42.200 | It's just exclusively used for me to inform you about that course as I get it launched, financialadvisorpodcast.com.
00:42:48.200 | I believe every single – in the future, every single financial advisor, every single accountant, every single company or business will have and should have some sort of audio podcast.
00:43:01.200 | And that's some of the details that I'll be talking through on the Financial Advisor Podcast product because it's not in the way that I'm doing radical personal finance.
00:43:08.200 | It's going to be in a very different way, just a way of connecting with your clients in the same transition that blogging has had where every company now has a blog of some sort.
00:43:16.200 | That's going to be happening with podcasting and it is happening with podcasting and it is happening with video.
00:43:22.200 | So check those two things out.
00:43:24.200 | Stay current on marketing and that's my closing just request for you.
00:43:28.200 | Stay current on marketing.
00:43:30.200 | In business, you've got to be developing financially valuable skills.
00:43:34.200 | Financially valuable skills are most likely skills that are connected to either the production of higher income, revenue or the decrease of expenses.
00:43:44.200 | If you can't look at your job and say, "Here's how much money I bring in," or "Here's how much money I've saved," your job is in danger over time.
00:43:54.200 | So you've got to constantly be paying attention to this and saying, "Yes, I am actually developing and applying financially valuable skills."
00:44:01.200 | And marketing and promotion for your company and your business, if it's your individual business or your company, is an incredibly valuable skill and it's just a skill that can be learned and applied.
00:44:11.200 | So consider that. Think about it.
00:44:13.200 | I hope this has been useful to you.
00:44:15.200 | Thank you all so much for listening to today's show.
00:44:18.200 | That's it for today.
00:44:19.200 | Check out what Bill's doing.
00:44:21.200 | Oh, I forgot to say, check out what Bill's doing online.
00:44:23.200 | I'll put links in the show notes to his YouTube channel.
00:44:25.200 | If you're interested, if you are a financial advisor, you'll enjoy his videos as far as keeping current on some of the changing technologies, some of the changing things that are happening in the marketplace, especially as pertains to financial advice.
00:44:36.200 | More than anything, though, just take a look at what he's doing because he's doing an excellent job with it.
00:44:40.200 | And he's parlayed his videos into a pretty cool career for himself.
00:44:45.200 | And in your industry, there might be something similar to what Bill has done.
00:44:49.200 | Perhaps you've been around the edges of an industry like he was a financial advisor but then, okay, transitioning.
00:44:55.200 | Maybe there's a slight shift that you can make.
00:44:57.200 | That's what I've done with Radical Personal Finance.
00:44:59.200 | I was a financial advisor and I made a shift because of the opportunities that new media and new technology has opened up to me.
00:45:05.200 | So there might be something like that that would be available for you hopefully to get your creative juices going.
00:45:10.200 | Thank you all so much for listening today.
00:45:12.200 | Go and check out those websites, buildingtrustonline.com, financialadvisorpodcast.com.
00:45:17.200 | And as always, thank you so much to those of you who signed up to support the show on Patreon.
00:45:20.200 | I appreciate each and every one of you, the individual patrons who directly support the show financially.
00:45:25.200 | If you haven't done that yet, what's wrong with you?
00:45:28.200 | I'm kidding.
00:45:29.200 | If you haven't done that yet, I would appreciate it very much.
00:45:32.200 | If you would go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patreon, check out all the options for ways that you can subscribe to support the show there.
00:45:38.200 | You can do it as little as a buck a month and I've got a bunch of other benefits laid out for you at higher levels of support as well.
00:45:45.200 | So thank you all so much for listening.
00:45:46.200 | Be back with you soon.
00:45:47.200 | [Music]
00:45:51.200 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:45:53.200 | Please subscribe to the podcast with our free mobile app so you don't miss a single episode.
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00:46:04.200 | If you have received value from the content of this show, please consider becoming a patron.
00:46:09.200 | Your financial support is how I pay the bills for the show and how I plan to grow our content.
00:46:14.200 | You can support the show with as little as a dollar a month or as much as you feel the content is worth.
00:46:19.200 | Details are at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:46:23.200 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com or connect with the show on Twitter @RadicalPF and at Facebook.com/RadicalPersonalFinance.
00:46:35.200 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment, but your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.
00:46:48.200 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy, and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
00:47:05.200 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.
00:47:12.200 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together.
00:47:18.200 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
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