RPF0248-Jack_Waymire

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00:00:30.080 | A lot of you have told me that you'd like to have a good financial advisor.

00:00:34.120 | And as I've mentioned many times on the show for all of you long-term listeners, that is the most difficult question that I have to answer is how do you find a good financial advisor?

00:00:43.320 | Well, today I'm going to be launching with an interview here a new sponsor for the show.

00:00:47.920 | The sponsor is called Paladin Registry.

00:00:49.720 | And the interview today is with the founder, Jack Waymire.

00:00:53.040 | He's a former financial advisor.

00:00:55.320 | Now he runs Paladin Registry and some other personal projects.

00:00:58.680 | And I believe this will be a very useful tool for many of you to at least try and see if it will help you to filter through the not so great financial advisor so that you can find a really great one.

00:01:11.600 | Somebody who can understand you and who can work with you over a long period of time to serve you in your journey to financial independence.

00:01:19.440 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:01:37.680 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:01:39.320 | Thank you for being with me today.

00:01:40.720 | Thrilled to introduce this new sponsor.

00:01:43.520 | I've done a lot of looking, done a lot of vetting, spoken extensively with Jack and with his team.

00:01:49.200 | Asked around the industry.

00:01:50.720 | And I believe this will be a good one for you.

00:01:52.880 | Many of you want and need a financial advisor.

00:01:56.160 | Many of you are DIYers, which is cool.

00:01:58.000 | But today I'm going to give you a solution for how to find a great financial advisor.

00:02:03.240 | The reason that it's difficult to find a good financial advisor, you're going to hear Jack and me discuss extensively.

00:02:13.520 | But the reason is that almost anybody can get licensed.

00:02:17.040 | And licensing doesn't tell you about the ethics and the integrity and the character of the person involved.

00:02:21.640 | Now, everybody has different perspectives on what financial advisors should do.

00:02:25.600 | Many people in the finance world are extremely opinionated about, well, an advisor should only operate their practice in this way or they should only have these types of practices.

00:02:34.640 | They should only sell these types of mutual funds or they should only do stocks or whatever.

00:02:39.280 | I don't buy that stuff.

00:02:41.360 | I personally think many advisors can operate under many different philosophies effectively.

00:02:46.240 | And although there are some that are statistically definitely much – proven to be much more effective than others, that doesn't mean there aren't outliers.

00:02:54.600 | And you got to study a little bit to understand.

00:02:57.400 | But – so I don't personally think we should characterize or categorize whether or not we're going to work with an advisor based upon necessarily a lot of those big broad strokes that a lot of people paint.

00:03:09.080 | But what's not optional to have a great advisor is to have somebody who's a person of character, a person of integrity, a person with ethics, and somebody who's knowledgeable.

00:03:19.480 | But man, how do you as the slightly educated consumer but not a professional, how do you actually know that?

00:03:28.280 | And that's where a service like our sponsor today, Paladin Registry, comes in.

00:03:33.560 | So start with listening to the interview.

00:03:36.120 | I'll come back at the end and share with you a few details.

00:03:38.520 | But listen to this interview with Jack Waymire, the founder, and you'll get an idea of where Paladin Registry came from and why I think it might be something that will serve many of you.

00:03:48.920 | Jack, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.

00:03:52.920 | I appreciate you being with me today.

00:03:54.120 | Yeah, it's my pleasure.

00:03:56.120 | Thank you.

00:03:56.920 | So I brought you on today to interview you as part of our launch of the formal business relationship between Radical Personal Finance and Paladin Registry.

00:04:06.520 | And I've been looking forward to this.

00:04:08.920 | It's been a long time coming, but I've been looking forward to doing it.

00:04:11.320 | And I thought the best way to launch our sponsorship would just simply be to talk to you about your personal background and also about the background of Paladin Registry.

00:04:21.320 | So let's start with a simple question.

00:04:24.120 | What's your background in the financial planning business?

00:04:27.720 | Yeah, I was in the financial service industry from 1976 until 2003.

00:04:37.320 | And for the majority of those years, I was the president of an RIA, a registered investment advisory firm.

00:04:45.320 | We also had a broker dealer and, you know, offered administrative services for pension plans.

00:04:52.520 | So we had a variety of services we offered.

00:04:54.520 | But the core business was always providing planning and investment services for fees.

00:05:00.520 | We had roughly 50,000 clients at the firm.

00:05:04.520 | The firm was acquired, actually it was acquired twice.

00:05:09.320 | It was acquired by a kind of a New York Stock Exchange company that was kind of half based in London and half based in the U.S.

00:05:18.920 | But then once we were acquired by this company, we started developing a lot of technology for advisors.

00:05:26.520 | And what caused me to, you know, kind of rethink my career was a firm, SunGard Data Systems, had a subsidiary, SunGard Wealth Management Services.

00:05:37.720 | And they basically came in and acquired my firm to gain access to the technology that they could turn around and market to bank trust departments.

00:05:48.520 | That was their main interest.

00:05:50.520 | So they bought the company in June of 2003.

00:05:55.320 | And I worked for SunGard for about roughly eight months after that.

00:06:00.520 | But I wasn't a really good fit for the culture at SunGard.

00:06:05.720 | And I started writing a book titled "Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Covenant Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor."

00:06:15.320 | I'd actually been writing the book for probably close to two years.

00:06:20.120 | What motivated me to write the book was the stock market crash of 2000, 2002.

00:06:27.720 | You remember when all the dot-coms collapsed and a lot of the communication stocks collapsed.

00:06:33.720 | And, you know, it was one of the biggest stock market collapses in history.

00:06:37.720 | And I saw a lot of my friends lose 40, 50, 60 percent of their assets.

00:06:44.720 | And to a large extent, these losses were exacerbated by bad advice, bad advisors.

00:06:52.320 | You know, they thought they had a financial advisor, but they really had a salesman telling them what to do with their money.

00:06:58.320 | And the irony was they didn't know the difference between a salesman and an advisor.

00:07:03.320 | And that's what motivated me to write the book.

00:07:06.320 | And so when SunGard came in and bought the company, the book was going to be published actually by a major New York publishing house.

00:07:16.320 | John Wiley and Sons published the book.

00:07:18.320 | And the book was scheduled to come out December of '03.

00:07:22.320 | We got acquired by SunGard in June of '03.

00:07:26.320 | So I left SunGard in 2000, February of '04, actually.

00:07:31.320 | And my goal was to promote the book and build an investor education website built around the principles of the book.

00:07:40.320 | And that's how Paladin Registry got started.

00:07:43.320 | It was tied to a crash, followed by a book, followed by a website.

00:07:48.320 | And that's basically been our model for the past 12 years.

00:07:53.320 | Didn't you think of just retiring after all?

00:07:55.320 | Isn't that what a financial advisor is supposed to do?

00:07:58.320 | You know, I'm not a retirement type guy, to be candid.

00:08:03.320 | But what I really love to do is educate and write.

00:08:08.320 | And so, you know, the book obviously gave me the opportunity to write.

00:08:13.320 | But then the website became an even bigger opportunity, frankly, because, you know, you're only going to write a book periodically.

00:08:21.320 | You can go out and refresh content on a website every day if you want to.

00:08:25.320 | And obviously, you know, we have two major blog sites attached to our website.

00:08:31.320 | So I do a lot of writing for our own blog sites.

00:08:36.320 | I'm a columnist for Work Magazine.

00:08:39.320 | I do writing for a lot of other major websites.

00:08:43.320 | So, you know, my main interest was writing and investor education.

00:08:48.320 | You know, at some point, you know, you don't really need to retire because it's like I kind of view retirement.

00:08:57.320 | I see a lot of my friends, for example, you know, they've retired.

00:09:01.320 | And I look at all that knowledge they've accumulated, basically going away.

00:09:05.320 | It's no longer productive.

00:09:07.320 | So I acquired a lot of knowledge since 1976, and I can share it with investors over our website, over our blog sites.

00:09:18.320 | And then, you know, what we did after we rolled out the website, we got a lot of demand from investors saying,

00:09:26.320 | "Hey, you guys know more about selecting advisors than we do.

00:09:29.320 | Why don't you go out and vet advisors and put them in a registry, and then I can go pick them out of the registry?"

00:09:36.320 | Because you know how to ask the right questions, and you know good answers from bad ones,

00:09:41.320 | and you reduce my risk of selecting a bad advisor.

00:09:45.320 | So in October of '04, we rolled out a registry of vetted-rated advisors.

00:09:51.320 | And that's actually been our business model ever since.

00:09:55.320 | It's heavily driven by investor education, how to select advisors, how to avoid bad advisors.

00:10:05.320 | And then also the registry where investors can go to find high-quality professionals in their communities.

00:10:14.320 | So it was actually an organic--was it an organic business where you had already been writing,

00:10:21.320 | and then your readers said, "How do we answer the question?"

00:10:25.320 | And then you created it, or was it a business idea that you said, "I bet there's a need for it,"

00:10:29.320 | and you were kind of testing it and went ahead and created it because you saw the need?

00:10:32.320 | I would say it was more based on demand.

00:10:37.320 | When the book came out, it got quite a bit of visibility.

00:10:41.320 | A lot of radio talk shows, for example, on financial topics, CNN, we got a fair amount of visibility.

00:10:49.320 | And a lot of these talk shows had a call-in feature, and that's where we kept running into,

00:10:57.320 | "Where can I go to find high-quality advisors? Where can I go to find better advisors?"

00:11:02.320 | That's what we kept hearing.

00:11:06.320 | I think there was a talk show host in Chicago one day said, "Why don't you start a registry

00:11:11.320 | and see who gets into the registry? Don't let anybody in.

00:11:15.320 | Only let in advisors that meet your standards based on the 17 principles in your book."

00:11:22.320 | And that made a lot of sense.

00:11:27.320 | When we relaunched, we basically took the website, added the registry,

00:11:32.320 | and it had about 350 advisors in it when we launched it.

00:11:35.320 | This was in October of '04.

00:11:39.320 | It's been a great service.

00:11:41.320 | We've helped over 100,000 investors select high-quality advisors since our inception.

00:11:48.320 | We've never had one complaint from an investor ever that they selected somebody.

00:11:55.320 | They used the registry to find and select an advisor.

00:11:59.320 | And the bottom line is they've never come back to us and said, "Wow, that advisor didn't meet my expectations,"

00:12:07.320 | or, "That was not the quality advisor you said it was."

00:12:12.320 | So we've had a pretty good track record for a 12-year period.

00:12:16.320 | It's interesting because I've been doing radical personal finance now for just over a year,

00:12:21.320 | and a lot of my own perceptions have changed since sitting on this side of a microphone for about a year.

00:12:30.320 | In the past, when I was a practicing financial advisor, I was very harsh on media,

00:12:35.320 | and specifically I was always harsh on people like Dave Ramsey with his endorsed local provider program.

00:12:42.320 | And I didn't like it. I didn't have a high opinion of some of the advisors that I knew who were involved in his program.

00:12:51.320 | And so I just said, "Well, what is this guy, Dave Ramsey? He's just building this referral network, and his only goal is money."

00:13:00.320 | Well, sitting on this side of a year of broadcasting, the number one question that I receive via private email,

00:13:07.320 | comments on the site, etc., is, "Joshua, how do I find a good financial advisor?"

00:13:12.320 | People tune in and they say, "Well, I like what you do, but you said you don't take clients, so how do I find a good financial advisor?"

00:13:18.320 | And that has been the most difficult question for me to answer.

00:13:23.320 | As I've gone out and tried to figure out, "Well, how on earth do you find a good financial advisor?"

00:13:28.320 | Especially in a place that I am as a media host, people are asking me that question.

00:13:33.320 | I have a few friends locally that I've done business with, that I've worked with, some in my former firm,

00:13:40.320 | some others that I knew from other firms that I have a high opinion of.

00:13:44.320 | But if all of a sudden I were to say, "I'm going to turn my listener base loose on this one advisor,"

00:13:53.320 | that would be a very bad business move for that advisor.

00:13:56.320 | Because number one, they would be swamped.

00:13:58.320 | And number two, it would be a bad business move for them because it would overwhelm their practice

00:14:04.320 | with the number of referrals they would get into one specific office.

00:14:08.320 | And then if I dried up, then their whole business would dry up.

00:14:11.320 | So it would need to be somebody who has a pretty large office with a number of advisors

00:14:16.320 | to be able to handle the number of inquiries that I've received.

00:14:19.320 | However, that made me aware of the fact of, "Wait a second, how on earth would I go out and vet financial advisors?"

00:14:28.320 | Because I have my own biases and experience with the firm that I was with, the practice structure that I was with,

00:14:34.320 | my own perception.

00:14:36.320 | But when you go to the market and you try to look at it in a little bit more of an objective way,

00:14:41.320 | it's a tough thing to do.

00:14:43.320 | So my hat's off to you for working at it, and I am glad that you exist,

00:14:49.320 | and I'm excited about being able to send some of the listeners through your program,

00:14:54.320 | and I'll anxiously await some of their personal feedback and hope that the reviews continue to be glowing.

00:15:01.320 | I'd like you to share about the vetting process because there are a number of listing services,

00:15:07.320 | there are a number of other competitors that you have,

00:15:10.320 | and I'd like for you to share specifically what are the metrics upon which you judge the financial advisors

00:15:16.320 | that apply to be a part of Paladin Registry.

00:15:20.320 | Yeah, I think it's pretty straightforward.

00:15:24.320 | But let me just give you one minute on background.

00:15:28.320 | The vast majority of all financial advisors are not financial advisors.

00:15:34.320 | They're salesmen.

00:15:36.320 | And they are paid commissions by third parties or their broker-dealers to sell product.

00:15:43.320 | And whether it's an investment product, an insurance product, a planning product,

00:15:47.320 | it's all a bunch of products, mutual funds being the most prevalent version of it,

00:15:52.320 | and they're basically paid to sell product.

00:15:55.320 | They do not have the knowledge to basically provide advice.

00:16:02.320 | They only know how to sell products.

00:16:04.320 | And I'm going to say there's almost 700,000 advisors in America,

00:16:09.320 | and I'm going to say 75% of them are salesmen.

00:16:14.320 | Twenty-five percent are real advisors in the sense that they're fiduciaries,

00:16:20.320 | they're compensated with fees, they have the right registrations, et cetera.

00:16:26.320 | But that doesn't mean that 25% are competent advisors.

00:16:30.320 | That just means they're set up to provide financial advice and services for fees,

00:16:36.320 | unlike the salesmen who can only sell financial products for commission.

00:16:42.320 | So the bottom line is Paladin focused on real advisors.

00:16:47.320 | Then the issue is, well, how do you determine who's good and who's not?

00:16:51.320 | I mean, you could be a financial advisor with six months of experience,

00:16:55.320 | and somebody else is a financial advisor with 25 years of experience.

00:17:01.320 | That's point one.

00:17:03.320 | Point two is--

00:17:04.320 | Hang on real quick.

00:17:05.320 | Remember point two, but I want to push back on point one,

00:17:08.320 | and feel free to disagree with me.

00:17:11.320 | But the biggest concern that I've always had when I've talked about the compensation models in this show

00:17:16.320 | is I recognize the reality of that statement.

00:17:20.320 | It's very--from an objective media standpoint,

00:17:23.320 | where I look back and I just simply survey the industry,

00:17:26.320 | I'm horrified at many of the people who declare themselves to be a financial advisor,

00:17:31.320 | and I look at their business practices, their recommendations, and I'm horrified at that.

00:17:36.320 | I also look back at my own experience.

00:17:39.320 | And so the first three years of my own practice, I was working purely based on commissions.

00:17:44.320 | I was not a financial advisor.

00:17:46.320 | I started in the insurance model, and I sold a few commissioned investment products.

00:17:53.320 | After three years, I moved into the fee-based model, where I was doing both commissions and fees.

00:17:59.320 | And the majority of my--and it became a fiduciary after I had completed the appropriate experience requirements

00:18:05.320 | in Series 65 and CFP.

00:18:07.320 | At that point in time, I went ahead and adopted the fiduciary--the legal standard of a fiduciary

00:18:14.320 | and worked in the fee-based model.

00:18:17.320 | It wasn't strictly fee-only.

00:18:19.320 | I was working in a commissions and fees structure,

00:18:21.320 | but the majority of my investment business was in fee-based accounts.

00:18:27.320 | My concern was that my personal advice didn't change based upon whether or not I--

00:18:35.320 | whether or not I was legally a fiduciary or not.

00:18:38.320 | And I've seen people who were legally fiduciaries make investment recommendations

00:18:43.320 | that I would not be comfortable with.

00:18:46.320 | And I made investment recommendations when I wasn't a fiduciary that always put the client's best interest at heart.

00:18:52.320 | And what I always think about, what frustrates me about this conversation that we have in the business,

00:18:56.320 | is I think of myself when I was the young, well-intentioned, hard-working financial advisor,

00:19:01.320 | and I hated it when people would stroke and--would paint a broad-brush stroke

00:19:06.320 | and focus on the method of compensation being commissioned

00:19:09.320 | and thereby ascribe to me guilt by association when I was simply still working my way through the models.

00:19:17.320 | How do you balance my own personal experience with what you just said and survey that in the marketplace?

00:19:26.320 | Yeah, I mean, it's very, very valid observations.

00:19:30.320 | I mean, you know, my point, too, was that anybody can call themselves an advisor or a planner.

00:19:37.320 | That's basically Wall Street manipulating the system, if you will.

00:19:42.320 | There are no mandatory disclosure requirements for advisors or salesmen. None.

00:19:47.320 | It's up to the investor to ask the right questions, no good answers from bad ones.

00:19:52.320 | And anybody can claim to be a planner.

00:19:55.320 | It used to be years ago 70% of all financial planners were insurance agents

00:19:59.320 | because they were using kind of a Mickey Mouse financial plan to sell insurance products.

00:20:05.320 | So, you know, the same thing could be happening on the investment side.

00:20:11.320 | I call myself a financial advisor, but my real role is to sell you products,

00:20:16.320 | and I collect commissions when I conduct the sale.

00:20:20.320 | Now, if you go back to kind of the spot-on comments that you made in the question,

00:20:25.320 | you know, you could look at fiduciary--what you try to get into then is competence and ethics.

00:20:33.320 | How do I know you're a competent advisor? How do I know you're an ethical advisor?

00:20:38.320 | And that's where talent and due diligence really does a pretty good job.

00:20:42.320 | Now, keep in mind, very few advisors, close to none, have accurate, legitimate track records.

00:20:50.320 | You know, they may show you the performance of a mutual fund and say, "This is what I recommend to my clients,"

00:20:56.320 | and they're trying to adopt the--you know, they're trying to make the mutual fund performance their own,

00:21:01.320 | when in fact they picked the mutual fund after the performance occurred,

00:21:05.320 | which is why the performance always looks good.

00:21:07.320 | Obviously, they're not going to show you a bad fund, but they have no track records.

00:21:12.320 | And so if I'm that typical investor out there and I want to make a good decision,

00:21:19.320 | not limited to picking an advisor from a brand name or picking an advisor that has the best personality

00:21:26.320 | or the best sales pitch, if I want to be more objective than that,

00:21:30.320 | then the only thing I can hone in on is competence as measured by credentials--education, experience, certifications.

00:21:41.320 | Once I look at competence, I look at ethics--fiduciary status, compliance records, transparency, those types of variables.

00:21:51.320 | Once I look at ethics, I can then look at business practices,

00:21:55.320 | and that's where I get into how this advisor is compensated.

00:21:58.320 | Is he fee-only, commission-only, or a hybrid?

00:22:01.320 | But, you know, like you described, some advisors do both.

00:22:07.320 | What kind of reporting am I going to get?

00:22:10.320 | And now when you've got the new robo and virtual advisors, you know, another question for investors is,

00:22:16.320 | "How are we going to get together to talk about what's going on with my money?

00:22:20.320 | Is it a virtual experience or is it a face-to-face experience?"

00:22:25.320 | But that's when you get into the business practices of the advisor.

00:22:29.320 | And in the fourth category, we look at after-competence ethics,

00:22:32.320 | and we actually break it down--credentials, ethics, business practices.

00:22:36.320 | And then the fourth is wealth management services.

00:22:39.320 | You know, are you providing services or are you selling products?

00:22:42.320 | And there's a very distinct difference.

00:22:45.320 | So, you know, because for me to sell a product, I don't have to know much.

00:22:49.320 | I just have to have enough skills to convince you to buy it.

00:22:52.320 | But if I'm going to be that true advisor who are now helping you figure out your risk tolerance

00:22:58.320 | and how we allocate your money and your investment horizon,

00:23:02.320 | all the variables that go into putting together a well-thought-out investment strategy,

00:23:08.320 | a real advisor, you know, I've got to be in the wealth management business.

00:23:13.320 | And we view that as providing advice and services as opposed to selling products.

00:23:19.320 | So what happens in the Paladin registry is if you're a commission only, you can't get in the registry.

00:23:26.320 | I mean, perfectly candid, if you work for a wire house, the big names like the Merrill Lynch's and the Morton's,

00:23:32.320 | you can't get in the registry.

00:23:34.320 | Too many potential conflicts of interest.

00:23:36.320 | You've seen the headlines on those companies taking advantage of their clients.

00:23:40.320 | So we tend to work mainly with the independent advisor because we think independence benefits the investor.

00:23:48.320 | When I'm independent, I can do what's best for my clients.

00:23:52.320 | When I'm an employee at a New York, you know, mega company, I have to do what my branch manager tells me to do.

00:24:01.320 | And if my job is to sell the product of the day, then that's the advice that I'm going to, you know,

00:24:08.320 | I'm not really giving advice at that point.

00:24:10.320 | I'm really selling a particular product.

00:24:12.320 | So we have, you know, we've been doing this for 12 years.

00:24:16.320 | We're the only firm that rates, you know, bets and rates the quality of advisors.

00:24:23.320 | And we're the only firm in our space that's registered with the SEC.

00:24:28.320 | So we've been audited by the SEC.

00:24:30.320 | They've looked at our business practices.

00:24:32.320 | They've looked at our algorithms.

00:24:34.320 | They've looked at the way we, you know, how many advisors do you reject versus how many advisors do you approve to be in the registry.

00:24:42.320 | We've been through all that with the regulatory agencies.

00:24:45.320 | And so we've got a fairly unique service in the sense that we can deliver a tremendous amount of value to investors.

00:24:55.320 | Because, frankly, we know how to determine the quality of advisors, and the typical investor does not.

00:25:01.320 | And because they don't know how to determine quality, it creates a huge financial risk.

00:25:07.320 | And you read about it all the time.

00:25:09.320 | Investors who picked the wrong advisors and suffered substantial losses or, you know, worst case, you know, they hired the Bernie Madoff types.

00:25:19.320 | And we figured out Madoff was a scam in 15 minutes.

00:25:22.320 | And we were looking at the exact same data that the SEC in general was looking at.

00:25:27.320 | And, you know, he was licensed for 27 years and, you know, had active current licensing from both agencies.

00:25:35.320 | Pretty obvious he was running a scam if you knew what to look for.

00:25:39.320 | So helping people select good guys and avoid bad guys, that's been our mantra from the very beginning.

00:25:46.320 | I will say this.

00:25:49.320 | As I have -- prior to originally connecting with you, I had not -- I was not aware of all of the -- I was not aware of all the different registries

00:26:02.320 | and all the different scenarios and all the different options.

00:26:06.320 | I was looking, and then I was put in touch with you guys.

00:26:10.320 | And as I was doing my due diligence, I went out and did my due diligence, talked to people that I knew and respected in the industry,

00:26:16.320 | people who are familiar with it.

00:26:17.320 | And you do have a reputation.

00:26:19.320 | And I have not found anybody else -- I haven't found any major competitor who performs the same level of due diligence that you guys do on the advisors.

00:26:29.320 | So I'm really glad that -- I'm really glad to be, you know, starting a relationship and starting to send people to you.

00:26:37.320 | Share with me who are the major competitors or the other listing services and what makes Paladin Registry different?

00:26:45.320 | Yeah, excellent question.

00:26:47.320 | I mean, we don't really have any competitors, I mean, to be very candid.

00:26:51.320 | If you look at a registry of vetted, rated advisors, and the vetting and the rating is based on those four characteristics I described --

00:27:01.320 | credentials, ethics, business practices, services -- nobody else does that.

00:27:06.320 | Now, you do have a few websites who sponsor directories.

00:27:12.320 | In some cases, they've gone in and downloaded every advisor who's registered with Fenra or licensed with Fenra.

00:27:21.320 | It's called that aggregation.

00:27:23.320 | It's called screen scraping.

00:27:24.320 | They go in and basically download everybody from Fenra, and then they figure out how am I going to make money once I've got this database.

00:27:32.320 | But a lot of those are directories.

00:27:34.320 | A lot of them claim to do due diligence.

00:27:37.320 | We've never seen one that actually conducted material due diligence.

00:27:42.320 | So you might say, "Here's a directory," and they will select a Fenra to see if the guy had a lot of complaints on his record, and they call that due diligence.

00:27:51.320 | You know, that's one of 17 factors in a Paladin scenario.

00:27:56.320 | Or you've got the Barons, you know, publishing the top 100, top 1,000 advisors in America,

00:28:04.320 | and the main criteria for Barons is how much money the advisor has under management,

00:28:09.320 | because somehow if you have a lot of money under management, you must be a competent, ethical advisor.

00:28:16.320 | But in our experience, a lot of advisors that control the most money happen to be the advisors with the best sales skills,

00:28:24.320 | which is good for the advisor but bad for the investor.

00:28:28.320 | So when you go out and you say, "Who's best? Is the best advisor the guy with the most money under management?

00:28:34.320 | Is the biggest sales staff the flashiest office?"

00:28:39.320 | Paladin basically brings it down to the four factors, credentials, ethics, business practices, services.

00:28:49.320 | It doesn't matter how much money you have under management.

00:28:52.320 | If you've got an MBA from Harvard and you're a CFP and a CFA and a CIMA and you've got 10, 15, 20 years of experience,

00:29:03.320 | you've got a totally clean compliance record, your primary method or only method of compensation is a fee.

00:29:09.320 | You provide wealth management services.

00:29:12.320 | You provide a lot of transparency in terms of how you conduct your business.

00:29:18.320 | That's what matters in the Paladin environment.

00:29:21.320 | And what I'm saying is we don't see any other competitor out there that uses the process that we do.

00:29:28.320 | Because again, what we boil it down to is if I'm that investor, if this was a member of my family seeking an advisor,

00:29:36.320 | what we would want to do is connect that person to a competent advisor they can trust,

00:29:43.320 | an advisor who has investor-friendly business practices, and an advisor who provides advice and services versus sales.

00:29:53.320 | That's what we do.

00:29:55.320 | Yeah, and a couple of comments, two specific things.

00:29:59.320 | Number one, you're absolutely right.

00:30:01.320 | From my own experience about the listing services, I remember when I was a young advisor and right after I got my 65

00:30:09.320 | and I was transitioning from an insurance sales practice over and I was finishing my CFP and I was transitioning over

00:30:17.320 | to trying to build a wealth management practice.

00:30:21.320 | That was the business transition.

00:30:23.320 | And all of a sudden I got, I think, a Google alert for my name one day and I start showing up on these sites.

00:30:29.320 | I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was Brightscope, something like that.

00:30:32.320 | And I get an email that says, "Go update your profile."

00:30:37.320 | And all of a sudden I'm like, "Wow, my name is everywhere.

00:30:39.320 | So I just need to go and create an account. I'll add a picture."

00:30:42.320 | And all of a sudden now I look like I've gotten an official scenario and here's my beautiful profile.

00:30:47.320 | All it was was the data started flowing in from the new registrations and now I'm listed

00:30:53.320 | and I can go in and adjust everything and make my profile look really great.

00:30:58.320 | And I hate that the potential consumer can be fooled or has the potential to be fooled to say that there's some amount of research being done

00:31:11.320 | when it's not. It's just simply a reality of either this person is licensed or not,

00:31:15.320 | which I guess is the most basic level of hurdle to cross, but that's a pretty basic hurdle to cross.

00:31:22.320 | Well, when you look at it, use an example like Brightscope.

00:31:26.320 | Brightscope is one of the firms that went in and downloaded every stock broker in the FINRA database.

00:31:33.320 | And then claiming your profile, what they did was download data from FINRA into a little kind of mini profile for an advisor.

00:31:45.320 | But then they had no way to monetize, make money from that profile.

00:31:50.320 | So they went out to the advisors and said, if you want to claim your profile and make sure it's accurate and updated,

00:31:56.320 | you can do that, but we're going to charge you a fee.

00:31:59.320 | And then they got a lot of backflash from advisors like it was some form of extortion.

00:32:04.320 | You're going to publish this FINRA record and you're going to charge me money to basically charge me money to clean it up.

00:32:14.320 | And I think they've evolved a little bit since then, but again, when you're willing to create a directory and publish every advisor at FINRA,

00:32:28.320 | keeping in mind a lot of those advisors have a lot of serious complaints on their records,

00:32:33.320 | not serious enough to get them kicked out of the industry, but serious enough that any advisor that read the complaint

00:32:40.320 | and the result of the complaint would probably go, wow, I don't want him handling my money.

00:32:45.320 | But if you went in and you said, how many investors go to FINRA to check compliance records?

00:32:51.320 | I'm going to say 1%, maybe.

00:32:54.320 | Very, very few investors are going to take the time to go to FINRA and look at a compliance record or go to the SEC and read an ADV.

00:33:04.320 | Because both regulatory agencies are heavily impacted by Wall Street.

00:33:11.320 | Wall Street owns FINRA, if you get down to it.

00:33:15.320 | FINRA is called a self-regulatory organization, which means Wall Street regulates Wall Street.

00:33:20.320 | They do it through FINRA.

00:33:22.320 | Wall Street also has a lot of political influence, major special interest group, so they have a lot of control over what the SEC does.

00:33:29.320 | So when you're going to go out and you start saying, I want a competent, ethical financial advisor, it's exactly what you said.

00:33:38.320 | It's way more complicated than you think it is, and it's way riskier if you make a bad decision.

00:33:44.320 | The other thing I like about the registry, and this is building on the other point you made about sales practice versus financial planning competency.

00:33:53.320 | If conducted effectively, which I know you're working every day to do, a registry can solve that problem for the independent financial advisor.

00:34:04.320 | If you go to a large firm, in any large financial firm, your status in the firm is not based solely upon your competence as a financial advisor, as a financial planner.

00:34:19.320 | It's based on your production level, and so production level is always measured by the gross commissions, the gross dealer concessions, or the fees that you're able to bring in for your firm.

00:34:32.320 | And so the big dogs in every financial planning firm are always the ones who have the largest accounts and the most accounts.

00:34:39.320 | The problem is, for an individual advisor, there might be a correlation between that person being an excellent advisor and having many large accounts, but you can't necessarily prove a causation.

00:34:53.320 | There are lots of advisors who have massive accounts, and many of them who are utterly incompetent when it comes to actual details, but they're excellent at the client relationships.

00:35:02.320 | And so probably the most competent advisors recognize their weaknesses, and they will usually staff those weaknesses.

00:35:11.320 | So many of the high-producing firms that I've looked at, they'll often have a leader who's an excellent salesperson, and then they'll try to staff in people who are technically competent to make sure that all the details are squared away and that the financial plans are buttoned up.

00:35:25.320 | I think that's – feel free to comment on that in a moment, but I think that's what the best advisors probably do.

00:35:32.320 | They recognize their problems, and then they staff for them.

00:35:36.320 | But the problem is that leaves the advisor who's interested in technical skill kind of out in the cold without an ability to bring in many clients.

00:35:45.320 | But yet the marketplace, there are many people who are clamoring for a good advisor, but they're almost never going to reach that person who's caring, who's slow, who's technically competent, who's going to take the time, who's not looking to be number one and make $50 million a year.

00:35:58.320 | They're just looking to have a nice client base of clients that they care for and steward toward their goals so that they can reach their own goals.

00:36:07.320 | And so in my mind, a registry effectively executed can really help that person to solve a problem.

00:36:14.320 | They can pay a fee for listing.

00:36:16.320 | They can go through the vetting process and prove competence, and they can be judged upon their worth as an advisor.

00:36:23.320 | And then instead of having to become a brilliant marketer, they can help – be helped by the referrals from the registry to build their business and focus on their core strength, which is being a great financial planner.

00:36:34.320 | So I think it's a win-win for the client and a win for the advisor because it allows some of those who are technically competent to be helped with their marketing and their client acquisition process.

00:36:46.320 | What say you, Jack?

00:36:47.320 | I would say those two comments are spot on.

00:36:52.320 | I mean, A, when you look at it from, say, a Paladin point of view, it's that investor hiring the best salesman or the best advisor.

00:37:04.320 | And it starts with, does the investor even know the difference between the two, which is why I made the comment I did about some of these directories that are based on assets under management.

00:37:15.320 | You think you're getting a great advisor because they have a lot of money under management.

00:37:19.320 | What you really got was a great salesman.

00:37:22.320 | And if you don't know the difference, then you've created a huge amount of risk.

00:37:27.320 | The other side of it is that the best advisors are typically lousy salesmen.

00:37:35.320 | For example, what we've written about a lot is the best advisors are going to be intellectual, quantitative, and analytical.

00:37:48.320 | And that makes them a great advisor.

00:37:50.320 | They may not even like marketing.

00:37:52.320 | They view marketing as something they have to do to expand their business.

00:37:57.320 | And then, like you said, they may go out and hire somebody to handle marketing so they can stay focused on helping people plan their future and invest their assets.

00:38:06.320 | But the irony is the guy that's taking you to lunch, playing around the golf, buying you a cocktail in the local tavern, the salesman type, that's exactly who you don't want handling your money.

00:38:21.320 | But from a personality point of view, fun to be around, great guy, lots of laughs.

00:38:28.320 | Then you've got this serious guy over here on the other side who is diligent and focused and intellectual and kind of a numbers guy, kind of a quant.

00:38:40.320 | So this is not somebody I probably want to socialize with or spend a lot of time with.

00:38:45.320 | But I do want him handling my money because intellectual, analytical, and quantitative, that's the skill set.

00:38:52.320 | When you go out and you start looking at all the numbers associated with investing and planning, that's exactly who I want to select.

00:39:00.320 | But if I am impacted by the personalities of the advisors, I may be prone to picking the guy I like the best versus the guy who really is the best.

00:39:14.320 | And let me tell you one little other caveat.

00:39:17.320 | Absolutely, Wall Street has figured out the game. They figured it out decades ago.

00:39:23.320 | They go out and they hire very personable stockbrokers.

00:39:28.320 | Why?

00:39:29.320 | They know most investors inherently trust people they like.

00:39:35.320 | So if I can get you to like me, then it's pretty easy for me to get you to trust me.

00:39:42.320 | You trust people you like.

00:39:44.320 | And once I've established trust, it's pretty easy for me to sell you whatever makes me the most money.

00:39:51.320 | Because you're not going to question my advice.

00:39:53.320 | You trust me.

00:39:54.320 | You trust me because you like me.

00:39:57.320 | So any investor that puts too much emphasis on personality is potentially setting themselves up for a big disappointment down the road

00:40:06.320 | when they find out that they've been sold a lot of expensive products that are underperforming the major indices and other things that they could have invested.

00:40:16.320 | So they got really bad advice from a person that they liked.

00:40:20.320 | And even like impacts the investor a second way.

00:40:24.320 | Investors are less inclined to fire people that they like.

00:40:31.320 | So even when they figure out, I've got a pretty mediocre advisor here, or hey, my friends are getting 15% and I'm getting 5%.

00:40:38.320 | The bottom line is I go look at the stock market.

00:40:40.320 | It was up 20%.

00:40:41.320 | I was up 10%.

00:40:43.320 | I see data that says, wow, I'm not doing very well.

00:40:48.320 | But boy, Fred takes me to lunch once a month.

00:40:51.320 | We play golf once a quarter.

00:40:54.320 | He invited me to his birthday party.

00:40:56.320 | I mean, I heard that just the other day, by the way.

00:40:59.320 | The bottom line is my whole relationship with my advisor, kind of what you said, based on a personal relationship, all the objectivity flies out the window.

00:41:10.320 | So not only do I hire the wrong advisor, I retain the wrong advisor for a lot longer than I should because I don't want to fire a friend and have the relationship go up in smoke.

00:41:24.320 | So I may be compromising my standard of living during my retirement years to retain a relationship with a mediocre advisor.

00:41:34.320 | Huge trap.

00:41:36.320 | Millions of people have fallen into it.

00:41:38.320 | Wall Street wins again.

00:41:40.320 | Yeah, it's a tough one because I've been on both sides.

00:41:43.320 | I was a do-it-yourselfer and then I became an advisor.

00:41:48.320 | And I took my job personally.

00:41:53.320 | And I was trying to think.

00:41:55.320 | I think I was fired by two clients.

00:41:57.320 | It wasn't due to -- I'm not ashamed of the reasons, but it was not a great personality fit and whatnot.

00:42:04.320 | And I found that neither of the clients that fired me were able to look me in the face and just simply tell me that, hey, we just want to move our business elsewhere.

00:42:14.320 | They had to do it in the back doorway where you find out after the fact when everything kind of slips out and then the client's phone goes silent.

00:42:21.320 | Which is really frustrating because I was always trying really hard.

00:42:25.320 | I just wanted to know, you know, what was it that -- what did I do?

00:42:28.320 | What happened so that I could get better?

00:42:31.320 | And I could piece some of it together.

00:42:33.320 | But we in this -- well, I don't need to go into a long dialogue on it.

00:42:37.320 | But we have a very difficult time having those difficult conversations, those business conversations.

00:42:42.320 | And the people that I grew to be my favorite clients were actually some of the hardened business people who had had -- usually it was guys in their, like, 50s, where they weren't scared of having a difficult conversation.

00:42:58.320 | And they were just straight up blunt with me, which was, as an advisor, the most freeing thing in the world to actually know, okay, here are the standards by which I'm being judged.

00:43:07.320 | Here are the metrics.

00:43:08.320 | I tell you what I'm going to do for you.

00:43:10.320 | You tell me if that's okay for you.

00:43:12.320 | Here's the money involved.

00:43:13.320 | And we just had a straightforward relationship.

00:43:15.320 | But with many people who weren't accustomed to those difficult conversations, there's certainly an element of personal tension in the relationship.

00:43:23.320 | Yeah, I would say maybe 10% are the -- of investors are that, you know, objective.

00:43:31.320 | We build a plan together.

00:43:33.320 | We agree on the plan.

00:43:34.320 | Your job is to execute the plan.

00:43:36.320 | And you're giving me data or a third party is giving me data to basically help me determine if you're meeting my expectations for results, et cetera.

00:43:46.320 | You know, a big new one now is very tied to expenses.

00:43:50.320 | You know, now that you've got these robots out there charging a quarter of 1%, and you've got the advisor who's charging you 1%, and one of the critical differences is how they communicate with you.

00:44:03.320 | Are you really, really willing to pay three quarters of 1% to meet face-to-face with an advisor?

00:44:09.320 | I take the whole -- you know, the Internet is finally, finally starting to impact the way people invest their money, who they select to invest, how they research it.

00:44:24.320 | The Internet's a phenomenal tool, but you have to know how to use it.

00:44:28.320 | And so the bottom line is, you know, the more the robots and the virtual advisor, the more exposure they get, the more it's going to drive people to the Internet.

00:44:36.320 | And they're going to go, "Wow, look at all this information that's on the Internet."

00:44:40.320 | But I never knew it existed.

00:44:42.320 | I mean, hopefully that's going to happen.

00:44:44.320 | At the same time, going back to your comment, a lot of people just hate confrontation.

00:44:51.320 | So firing an advisor is confrontational.

00:44:54.320 | So I don't like confrontation, but I also don't like firing somebody that I think is my friend.

00:45:02.320 | And if you go back to using an extreme example, Bernie Madoff, his 11,000 clients, one of the most frequent laments from his clients was, "I thought he was my friend.

00:45:16.320 | Therefore, I thought I could trust him."

00:45:20.320 | And basically, he totally ripped me off to make more money.

00:45:25.320 | But it all started with, "I thought we had a friendship.

00:45:29.320 | I thought he was my friend."

00:45:31.320 | You know, it's kind of like friendship and money shouldn't mix.

00:45:37.320 | Money should be extremely, like you said, extremely objective.

00:45:42.320 | Money should be based upon a whole set of objective criteria.

00:45:47.320 | So we have goals, and we have metrics, and we know how to measure you.

00:45:51.320 | And you either meet my expectations for value, or I'm going to find somebody else who can.

00:45:59.320 | And that's another thing that investors do in the back of their head is, "If I fire Fred, how do I know I'm going to find somebody better?"

00:46:07.320 | So there's a lot of inertia out there with investors also because they don't know where to go to find a quality advisor.

00:46:15.320 | So they more or less stick with a mediocre advisor because they don't know where to go to find a better advisor.

00:46:23.320 | Millions of people are stuck in that trap.

00:46:26.320 | And again, who's the big winner?

00:46:28.320 | Wall Street because Wall Street firms employ a lot of mediocre advisors.

00:46:33.320 | And so if they're just kind of getting by, you know, delivering, you know, okay performance,

00:46:40.320 | you know, investors may or may not even know what they're paying for that performance.

00:46:44.320 | But the investor is a little apathetic, a lot of inertia, because how do I know I can find anybody better?

00:46:51.320 | So it's kind of the advisor you know versus the advisor you don't know.

00:46:56.320 | And of course, there's no guarantee you're going to find anybody better.

00:47:00.320 | So I might as well stick with the guy that I've got now.

00:47:03.320 | At least I know him and he knows me and we're friends.

00:47:06.320 | And, yeah, things aren't great, but it could be worse.

00:47:09.320 | I mean, I've heard that a thousand times.

00:47:12.320 | And all it is, it's a great explanation for doing nothing.

00:47:16.320 | Plus, it's just a pain sometimes to consider moving accounts.

00:47:21.320 | You know, you've got 100 to 200 pages of account opening paperwork, and you've got to figure out, you know,

00:47:27.320 | you've got to reassess it and from the client's perspective, I've got to take all these forms,

00:47:31.320 | I've got to do all these diagnostic exams, I've got to tell someone else this is here,

00:47:36.320 | and, you know, my kids want this, and here's the plan.

00:47:39.320 | And it's daunting, and I understand why it's daunting.

00:47:44.320 | Two last--

00:47:45.320 | Yeah, it's daunting. It's daunting.

00:47:48.320 | However, when you start looking at consequences, if I've got a mediocre advisor,

00:47:55.320 | and, you know, let's say I'm a 45-year-old investor and I'm not going to retire until I'm 65.

00:48:02.320 | So for the next 20 years, what, I'm going to have mediocre results or retire with less money?

00:48:07.320 | And because I have less money, I've got to compromise my standard of living during my retirement years,

00:48:12.320 | and I may really impact my financial security late in life when I need it the most.

00:48:18.320 | There are consequences for doing nothing.

00:48:21.320 | A successful investor should think a little more like that because by accepting mediocrity,

00:48:27.320 | they're also compromising their financial future.

00:48:30.320 | But if they think short-term, and I'm not sitting here, you know, it's like me saying,

00:48:35.320 | "If I stay with Fred, I'm going to have a million less dollars when I retire.

00:48:39.320 | Boy, I better do something."

00:48:41.320 | All of a sudden, I've got, you know, those forms that I have to fill out.

00:48:45.320 | I put them in perspective because if I can find a better advisor,

00:48:50.320 | I'm going to have a lot more money when I retire.

00:48:53.320 | And a lot more money makes filling out those forms worthwhile.

00:48:57.320 | Yeah, let's just put a number to it.

00:48:59.320 | So let's run 20 years, 6%, a million bucks present value.

00:49:03.320 | So starting with a million bucks, no contributions.

00:49:06.320 | A million bucks at 6% over 20 years grows into 3.2.

00:49:10.320 | If it's 7% over 20 years, it grows into 3.8 million.

00:49:15.320 | So the difference between those of 1% over 20 years winds up being $662,548.99.

00:49:24.320 | So you figure, "Well, if I can get an extra 1%, an extra 100 basis points,

00:49:29.320 | it might be worth me doing some shopping."

00:49:32.320 | Because there are very few things which over a 20-year horizon like that

00:49:36.320 | are going to make a bigger difference in my wealth than rate of return.

00:49:42.320 | At the beginning of life, when you don't have much money,

00:49:45.320 | the biggest impact in how much wealth you build is the number of dollars

00:49:50.320 | you put away each year.

00:49:51.320 | But over time, as the wealth builds, then the biggest impact is rate of return.

00:49:56.320 | And it's huge. It's huge.

00:49:58.320 | It's called the power of compound interest.

00:50:02.320 | And actually the difference is usually not 1%, it's usually 3, 4, 5%.

00:50:07.320 | So numbers can be very, very substantial.

00:50:10.320 | The difference between being in a product delivering 6% that has a 2% fee structure,

00:50:16.320 | so you're really only getting 4%, versus a 9% environment where maybe

00:50:21.320 | you're getting a 1% fee schedule.

00:50:23.320 | So the net-net is literally double.

00:50:27.320 | I go from 4% to 8% by improving my results and reducing the expenses I pay

00:50:33.320 | for those results because a lot of mediocre advisors sell very expensive products

00:50:38.320 | because that's how they maximize commission.

00:50:41.320 | So bottom line is, you know, those expenses, you know,

00:50:46.320 | when an advisor makes 5% commission on my assets, that's what's happening.

00:50:52.320 | You know, the third party that paid the advisor the 5%,

00:50:56.320 | it's going to charge me more money to get its 5% back.

00:50:59.320 | So when the advisor tells me, "Hey, my planning service is free,

00:51:04.320 | I'm paid by a third party," extremely misleading.

00:51:08.320 | Because the bottom line is that third party wants to recover that commission

00:51:12.320 | by charging the investor more money.

00:51:15.320 | But how many investors are going around saying, "Yeah, it's a financial plan.

00:51:19.320 | What'd you pay for the plan?" "Oh, it was free."

00:51:22.320 | "Well, how'd you invest your money?"

00:51:24.320 | "Oh, I have three different annuities.

00:51:26.320 | I've got all this long-term care, and I've got life insurance,

00:51:30.320 | and then I own some mutual funds."

00:51:32.320 | You know, the highest commission products in the entire industry.

00:51:35.320 | But the advisor used the plan to sell the product

00:51:38.320 | because they don't run into as much sales resistance from investors.

00:51:42.320 | So, you know, bottom line, everything we're discussing is people just have to be

00:51:46.320 | extremely careful.

00:51:47.320 | They have to do their homework.

00:51:49.320 | They have to commit a little bit of time to making sure they're selecting

00:51:53.320 | the right advisor, the best advisor.

00:51:55.320 | You know, you've got to do your homework.

00:51:57.320 | You know, and the bottom line is, hopefully, if you do that,

00:52:00.320 | you will make a better decision than if you don't do that.

00:52:03.320 | And be very wary of advisors with the great personalities,

00:52:08.320 | the great sales pitches, you know, because what they're doing is creating a lot of,

00:52:14.320 | you know, call them undocumented sales claims.

00:52:19.320 | When I come in and I tell you that I'm going to deliver this great performance,

00:52:23.320 | but I have absolutely no documentation to prove that I've done it in the past,

00:52:28.320 | I may show you some hot mutual funds, but how do you know I didn't pick the funds

00:52:32.320 | after the performance occurred?

00:52:34.320 | So I do things to try to convince you that these are all undocumented sales claims.

00:52:39.320 | So one of the single best things the investor can do,

00:52:42.320 | in addition to everything else we've talked about,

00:52:46.320 | is also only trust information that advisor is willing to document.

00:52:51.320 | That's one of the other advantages of Paladin Registry is we've gone out

00:52:55.320 | and not only gathered the data, conducted all of the due diligence on the data,

00:53:00.320 | but we now provide online documentation so that investor can not only find the advisor

00:53:06.320 | in our system, they can also read all about that advisor,

00:53:10.320 | and they have a permanent record for credentials, ethics, business practices,

00:53:15.320 | and services.

00:53:18.320 | So two final themes.

00:53:20.320 | You brought up expenses, and I want to ask the question that many people listening

00:53:24.320 | right now are thinking.

00:53:27.320 | Okay, Jack, that sounds good, but the reality is if I have to pay an advisor money,

00:53:33.320 | let's say that I could go from 6% with a 2% load,

00:53:38.320 | so I'm netting 4% return on my investments,

00:53:40.320 | and there might be an advisor who could take me to 9% with a 1% fee.

00:53:44.320 | Well, why shouldn't I just--after all, my other choice is that I could just

00:53:50.320 | trot down to Vanguard and buy an index fund for, you know, what,

00:53:56.320 | under 20 basis points for some of the funds.

00:53:58.320 | So what's better than 9% with 1% fee?

00:54:03.320 | It's 9% with only 0.15% fee on my accounts.

00:54:07.320 | So what is the role in today's world where costs are pressed down?

00:54:12.320 | I mean, I can't even imagine what you've seen since you started in 1976 to today,

00:54:16.320 | almost 2016, the investment world has been turned upside down,

00:54:21.320 | and it's being continually turned upside down.

00:54:24.320 | What is the role that you see for working with a financial advisor who's charging

00:54:29.320 | money more than what you can get by just trotting down to Vanguard?

00:54:34.320 | Well, I think when you trot down to Vanguard, I mean, if you're going to go in

00:54:37.320 | and pick your own funds and that type of thing, you know,

00:54:41.320 | that basically implies you've got the expertise to pick the right funds.

00:54:46.320 | I mean, Vanguard manages $2 trillion and it's got hundreds of funds,

00:54:51.320 | and there are good funds, mediocre funds, and bad funds.

00:54:54.320 | There are funds with higher expenses.

00:54:56.320 | There are funds with lower expenses.

00:54:58.320 | There are funds with extremely low expenses, index funds, ETFs, et cetera.

00:55:03.320 | But that implies that you have the time, the inclination,

00:55:08.320 | and the knowledge to go in and make the right decisions at Vanguard.

00:55:14.320 | And Vanguard is not staffed with heavy-duty advisors.

00:55:18.320 | They're staffed more with customer service representatives that can help you

00:55:23.320 | with processing and technical issues,

00:55:25.320 | but they're not really there to give you financial advice.

00:55:28.320 | Now, when you go look at a financial planner/advisor, you know,

00:55:34.320 | it starts with a robust financial planning process.

00:55:38.320 | That becomes your roadmap for your financial future.

00:55:42.320 | You may have risk management issues that are solved with various insurance products.

00:55:47.320 | You may have estate planning issues, retirement planning issues,

00:55:51.320 | your children's education, how do you achieve financial security

00:55:55.320 | during your working years.

00:55:56.320 | All that's kind of sorted out with an advisor with your financial plan.

00:56:01.320 | At some point when you execute the plan, you know,

00:56:04.320 | assets, let's say, outside of your 401(k) plan,

00:56:08.320 | IRAs, personal accounts, trust, have to be invested in the securities markets.

00:56:13.320 | And so what you're doing is paying an advisor for his knowledge,

00:56:18.320 | his advice, and his services.

00:56:21.320 | And you can't really duplicate that at a no-loan family

00:56:25.320 | who really just wants you to sell your products.

00:56:29.320 | So Vanguard is a lower-cost mutual fund complex compared to, say,

00:56:35.320 | a Fidelity or some of the others.

00:56:37.320 | But at the same time, when you need an integrated solution,

00:56:42.320 | you're not going to get that at Vanguard.

00:56:44.320 | Now, Vanguard has a new service for 30 basis points

00:56:47.320 | where you get to talk to somebody live on the telephone,

00:56:51.320 | and you get a financial plan, which, bottom line, is a cookie cutter

00:56:56.320 | because they don't know you well enough, an investor.

00:57:00.320 | They don't know the investor well enough to create a really comprehensive plan.

00:57:04.320 | So it's cookie cutter, low-cost,

00:57:07.320 | don't have a lot of technical aspects to the plan, et cetera.

00:57:13.320 | So I can't get the same level of service.

00:57:16.320 | Now, if I'm looking for cheap, and I'm willing to pick my own funds,

00:57:20.320 | and I'm willing to do a lot of it myself, then Vanguard can work.

00:57:25.320 | But if I want an integrated solution that gets into all the forms of planning,

00:57:31.320 | tax minimization, investment results,

00:57:37.320 | and I want some continuity that can last for years and years and years,

00:57:42.320 | and I want somebody who really knows me as a person,

00:57:46.320 | knows my family, knows my goals, knows my concerns,

00:57:51.320 | at that point I need a real, live advisor.

00:57:54.320 | I said it was going to be two more things, but I actually forgot,

00:57:57.320 | and now it's two more things.

00:57:59.320 | The next thing is to clarify,

00:58:02.320 | because earlier we were talking about compensation models.

00:58:06.320 | Paladin does not work exclusively with fee-only advisors,

00:58:12.320 | but you don't accept commission-only advisors.

00:58:15.320 | Rather, you work with some fee-only advisors,

00:58:19.320 | and you work with advisors who are what we call fee-based,

00:58:22.320 | where they have some compensation in the form of fees.

00:58:25.320 | They may be what you hear of as fee-based.

00:58:27.320 | Some can be fees, some can be commissions.

00:58:29.320 | Why do you make that decision,

00:58:31.320 | and why do you not set the bar where the NAPFA, for example, sets it,

00:58:37.320 | where they say, "We're only going to work with fee-only advisors"?

00:58:39.320 | Why do you accept commission and fee advisors into the Paladin registry?

00:58:44.320 | Yeah, it's extremely confusing.

00:58:47.320 | So let's just work on the definition for a minute.

00:58:51.320 | Fee-only means my only method of compensation is a fee.

00:58:55.320 | There are three types of fees, an hourly fee, a fixed fee, and an asset-based fee.

00:59:01.320 | So when I provide planning services,

00:59:03.320 | I may provide planning services for $200 an hour,

00:59:07.320 | or I may provide a plan to you for $2,000, 10 hours of work.

00:59:13.320 | So fixed and hourly are generally charged for planning-type advice and services.

00:59:18.320 | The asset-based fee, a percentage of your assets,

00:59:21.320 | that's typically how an advisor wants to be compensated for knowledge,

00:59:26.320 | advice, and services tied to investing.

00:59:29.320 | Now, when Paladin started back in 2003 and launched our first website in '04,

00:59:36.320 | we really did start as a fee-only platform,

00:59:39.320 | and we immediately ran into some problems

00:59:43.320 | because a lot of the fee-only planners also had extremely high minimum asset requirements.

00:59:50.320 | So I only worked with investors that have at least $1 million available for investing,

00:59:55.320 | or $500,000, maybe even $250,000.

00:59:59.320 | And because when you charge a 1% fee,

01:00:04.320 | if you've only got $100,000,

01:00:07.320 | is that advisor willing to work with a client with $100,000 and a 1% fee schedule

01:00:12.320 | so that advisor is going to make $1,000 a year for his knowledge, advice, and services?

01:00:19.320 | Typical advisor that's really good says, "I'd work more than that."

01:00:23.320 | Well, the way they control it is with their minimum.

01:00:25.320 | So Paladin went to the hybrid fee or commission-type advisor

01:00:31.320 | because a lot of them have the ability to work with clients that have a lot smaller assets.

01:00:37.320 | If somebody is using Paladin, they have no assets.

01:00:40.320 | They're looking for a fee-only planner.

01:00:43.320 | Well, they have $50,000, $100,000, $250,000, all these different numbers.

01:00:47.320 | So by going with the fee-based advisor, fee and commission, that gave us a lot more flexibility.

01:00:55.320 | So the investor still benefited from a better advisor,

01:00:58.320 | but that advisor could be compensated with a fee or commission.

01:01:02.320 | That's basically how we looked at it.

01:01:04.320 | That was important to me when I was checking you guys out

01:01:07.320 | and when we were discussing things privately for exactly the reasons that you just enumerated.

01:01:13.320 | I like if somebody is fee-only, but I believe--I feel as though that excludes

01:01:20.320 | and can exclude a lot of advisors who, when measured objectively across all the other many criteria

01:01:28.320 | that you can measure somebody on, are ethical, careful advisors

01:01:32.320 | and also feel like it can exclude a lot of clients who can't be well-served in the fee-only environment.

01:01:37.320 | So Alan Moore from XY Planner Network, he and I argue about it,

01:01:42.320 | but I stick to my guns and I have yet to be convinced.

01:01:45.320 | So that's one thing I value about that you do, and it should just be clearly expressed.

01:01:51.320 | So the final question, Jack, is--go ahead.

01:01:55.320 | Let me interject one thing.

01:01:57.320 | In our algorithm, if an advisor says, "I'm fee and commission,"

01:02:04.320 | they lose some serious points in the algorithm.

01:02:09.320 | So if I'm fee-only, I don't lose any points.

01:02:12.320 | Everybody starts at 100% and we deduct points for perceived weakness.

01:02:16.320 | Bottom line is that if they're fee-only, they don't lose any points.

01:02:21.320 | If they're fee and commission, the hybrid, they lose serious points.

01:02:26.320 | So the only way they can get into the registry is they've got to be a lot stronger in other areas.

01:02:32.320 | Years of experience, CFP, CFA, other certifications that really matter.

01:02:40.320 | So we basically hit them if they accept commissions,

01:02:45.320 | and the only way they can get in is they've got to have offsetting strengths.

01:02:49.320 | So we don't treat the fee-only and the fee and commission advisors the same.

01:02:54.320 | What we do is make it tougher for the fee and commission advisor to get into the registry.

01:03:00.320 | That's how we handle it.

01:03:02.320 | And I think that's as it should be.

01:03:04.320 | There are more conflicts of interest in a fee and commission model,

01:03:08.320 | but it doesn't mean that somebody couldn't maintain that model for their own purposes,

01:03:12.320 | but there are more conflicts of interest,

01:03:15.320 | and you need to prove that you're able to handle those through those other aspects.

01:03:19.320 | I appreciate your bringing that out.

01:03:21.320 | You had brought that out to me privately, and I'm glad you brought it out here on the show.

01:03:25.320 | The last thing I'd like you to do is just simply to explain the process of if --

01:03:30.320 | pretend for a moment I were a financial advisor.

01:03:32.320 | Just so the people who may be using the affiliate link that we've established to track their entries

01:03:40.320 | so that I can receive credit for the referral, I'd like them to understand the financial incentives,

01:03:45.320 | how an advisor finds out about you, how much do advisors pay, they pay you,

01:03:50.320 | what's the process look like, how is the money flowing as far as --

01:03:56.320 | how is the money flowing from the advisor to you,

01:03:59.320 | how are the clients flowing through from you to the advisor.

01:04:02.320 | Explain the potential conflicts of interest involved

01:04:04.320 | and how the advisors actually get connected with Paladin Registry

01:04:07.320 | so that listeners are aware of how those relationships are structured.

01:04:12.320 | Yeah.

01:04:14.320 | Several fair questions in there.

01:04:17.320 | One is we don't do any marketing to financial advisors, absolutely zero.

01:04:22.320 | So the bottom line is the advisor is going to find us on the Internet

01:04:26.320 | or hear about us perhaps the same way the investor does.

01:04:31.320 | We've already got the vetting and rigging.

01:04:34.320 | That determines who gets into the registry.

01:04:37.320 | When you're in the registry, we operate the registry like an association.

01:04:43.320 | That advisor pays monthly dues to be in the registry.

01:04:47.320 | There are no contracts.

01:04:49.320 | There are no paid in advance.

01:04:52.320 | There are no time commitments.

01:04:55.320 | And most importantly, we do not sell leads or referrals to advisors.

01:05:00.320 | A lot of websites do that.

01:05:02.320 | We do not.

01:05:03.320 | So they pay one fixed monthly fee to be in the registry,

01:05:10.320 | and that fee covers virtually everything that we do.

01:05:14.320 | There's one thing that we do for advisors that's not covered by the fee,

01:05:17.320 | which is a background checking service.

01:05:20.320 | So everything is covered by one fixed monthly fee.

01:05:24.320 | The monthly fee then varies based upon where you're located.

01:05:29.320 | So if you were in the middle of Montana in a town of 25,000,

01:05:34.320 | you're going to pay a lower fee to be in the registry

01:05:37.320 | because you're not going to get the same benefit as somebody who's in Chicago.

01:05:44.320 | Because when you think about our services

01:05:47.320 | and the ability to refer an investor to an advisor,

01:05:50.320 | it highly correlated the population.

01:05:53.320 | So an advisor in the bigger city will pay a higher monthly service fee

01:05:58.320 | than the advisor in the smaller city.

01:06:01.320 | And the range in the fee is fairly broad, anywhere from, say, $75 a month

01:06:08.320 | up to roughly $295 a month.

01:06:13.320 | But the big variable is where you're located.

01:06:17.320 | And then an advisor can opt in or out of the registry at any time,

01:06:24.320 | so they're not locked into anything.

01:06:27.320 | If we're unhappy, we can boot them easily.

01:06:31.320 | Rarely do that.

01:06:32.320 | If they're unhappy, they can leave any time they want to.

01:06:36.320 | So the most important thing is there's no contractual obligations.

01:06:39.320 | They're not paying for anything in advance, and they're not paying for leads.

01:06:45.320 | They're paying to be in the registry, and one of the services is referral.

01:06:50.320 | Now, the way the referral system then works, investors have two options.

01:06:55.320 | They can go in to the system and pick their own advisors that they want to talk to,

01:06:59.320 | because that's what we're really doing.

01:07:01.320 | It's kind of like we're Match.com between people with money and advisors.

01:07:07.320 | We're going to bring them together.

01:07:09.320 | The investor has the ability to use a directory application.

01:07:15.320 | They can use the directory application.

01:07:17.320 | That's where they pick the advisor.

01:07:19.320 | Or they can use a matching process.

01:07:22.320 | That's where Paladin picks the advisor.

01:07:24.320 | And we're generally going to refer them to two or three advisors so they have a choice.

01:07:29.320 | We think it's extremely important they interview more than one,

01:07:32.320 | because they can compare them to each other.

01:07:35.320 | Good way to learn.

01:07:38.320 | And so we're going to give them two or three matches,

01:07:40.320 | or they can go into a directory application and pick anybody they want to talk to.

01:07:45.320 | And then once they pick the advisor or they use our matching service,

01:07:50.320 | where we pick the advisor, we're going to ask them a few questions.

01:07:54.320 | Who are you? Where are you located?

01:07:57.320 | What are your available assets for investing?

01:08:00.320 | Because why do we ask that question?

01:08:02.320 | Again, remember, a lot of advisors have minimum asset requirements,

01:08:06.320 | so we don't want to match an investor with $300,000 to an advisor

01:08:11.320 | who happens to have a $1 million minimum.

01:08:14.320 | Neither one would be happy in that case.

01:08:16.320 | So we ask them, "What are your available assets?"

01:08:19.320 | You don't have to give us a specific number.

01:08:22.320 | We give you ranges. We just ask you which range applies to you.

01:08:26.320 | And then the last question is, "What services are you looking for?"

01:08:29.320 | Planning, investing, et cetera.

01:08:31.320 | And then that gives us enough information to match you.

01:08:35.320 | If we're picking the advisors,

01:08:37.320 | we then match you to two or three professionals in your community.

01:08:42.320 | The professional calls the investor to basically talk on the telephone

01:08:48.320 | about their respective-- what's the investor need, what does the advisor do?

01:08:52.320 | And if they like what they hear on the telephone,

01:08:54.320 | they'll schedule an appointment.

01:08:56.320 | It usually gets together face-to-face,

01:08:59.320 | which could be at the investor's location or the advisor's location.

01:09:03.320 | That's usually left up to the investor.

01:09:07.320 | And at that point, Paladin moves on to the next investor that will process it.

01:09:12.320 | I think it's a really great system.

01:09:14.320 | And then the only thing that you didn't mention is my compensation.

01:09:21.320 | So my compensation flows to me based upon people using my referral link

01:09:27.320 | so that it can be tracked.

01:09:29.320 | But my compensation is not tied to which advisor you pick,

01:09:33.320 | or even if you pick an advisor.

01:09:35.320 | Rather, it's tied to the fact of your using the service to interview some advisors.

01:09:40.320 | And so when I was thinking it through in the potential conflicts of interest,

01:09:44.320 | the fact that advisors don't pay for leads is key.

01:09:48.320 | Rather, they pay for registry.

01:09:50.320 | The fact that the client has the opportunity to interview multiple advisors.

01:09:54.320 | And then the fact that I'm not the one sitting down and picking and saying,

01:09:57.320 | "Well, you have to do this."

01:09:59.320 | Rather, we're trying to basically provide a really trustworthy matchmaking system.

01:10:04.320 | And I think-- I don't know about you, Jack, but it's about as close to--

01:10:08.320 | well, obviously it's your company, so you've got to say yes.

01:10:10.320 | But it's about as close to perfect as at least I could come up with

01:10:14.320 | in our current world to give people what they're looking for,

01:10:18.320 | which is some external help with them, some external due diligence help,

01:10:23.320 | so that they can find that most trusted advisor who can guide them

01:10:27.320 | through the crazy financial world that we live in.

01:10:32.320 | Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is that it's also the only way

01:10:36.320 | we can deliver a free set of services to investors.

01:10:41.320 | To be perfectly candid, we would love to be paid by investors.

01:10:46.320 | We tested that model many, many years ago, and it fell flat on its face.

01:10:51.320 | I don't know if investors just expect internet services to be free.

01:10:56.320 | We surveyed them and really never got a clear picture of,

01:11:00.320 | "We're going to help you select a good advisor.

01:11:02.320 | Why don't you pay us for that service?"

01:11:05.320 | It just did not work.

01:11:07.320 | So the only solution we had was to come up with the cleanest possible way

01:11:13.320 | to be compensated by an advisor, which then allowed us to provide

01:11:16.320 | a free service to the investor.

01:11:19.320 | And that's why it looks the way it does.

01:11:21.320 | Yeah, I think it's a great system.

01:11:23.320 | Do advisors pay you in advance for you to vet them and go through that process?

01:11:29.320 | Do they pay a fee in advance for that, or do they come to you and apply

01:11:32.320 | and then start paying fees?

01:11:35.320 | No, they do not pay a penny for vetting because, obviously, that would be awkward

01:11:41.320 | because we reject a pretty high percentage of the advisors who submit data to us.

01:11:46.320 | So for us to charge a fee to an advisor that we rejected--

01:11:50.320 | the simpler solution is vetting is a totally objective process.

01:11:55.320 | Yes, it has a pretty high rejection rate.

01:11:58.320 | A lot of people just don't qualify to get into the registry,

01:12:01.320 | but that's an expense that basically is offset when they--

01:12:05.320 | by those that are admitted to the registry.

01:12:07.320 | This is just one of our expenses, running the registry.

01:12:11.320 | But we don't charge them for it.

01:12:14.320 | And I've heard it phrased by media, frankly,

01:12:17.320 | "Well, then you mean people can't buy their way into the registry."

01:12:20.320 | That's exactly what it means.

01:12:23.320 | Jack, I'll give you the last word.

01:12:25.320 | If you were going to give some advice to a listener

01:12:29.320 | who's frustrated with having made mistakes,

01:12:33.320 | especially maybe having engaged in financial planning relationships

01:12:36.320 | that didn't work well, didn't find a good advisor,

01:12:40.320 | if you were just going to give them some comprehensive advice

01:12:42.320 | of how the individual consumer and client could proceed forward,

01:12:46.320 | what words of wisdom would you give as your closing remarks?

01:12:52.320 | Go to filepalladinregistry.com--P-A-L-A-D-I-N--registry.com.

01:12:58.320 | What you're going to find on that website is a lot of information about advisors,

01:13:04.320 | how they're compensated, how they're licensed,

01:13:06.320 | how to check out their compliance records, et cetera.

01:13:09.320 | You're going to find a lot of content about selecting advisors,

01:13:14.320 | how to avoid bad guys, a lot of scams that, you know,

01:13:18.320 | once you know what the scam looks like, now you're in a position to avoid it.

01:13:22.320 | So there's a lot of education.

01:13:24.320 | And then if you're looking for an advisor, you've got the directory app

01:13:29.320 | where you pick the advisors you want to talk to,

01:13:31.320 | or you can submit information and Paladin will select the best advisors for you.

01:13:37.320 | If nothing else, it's a great place to start.

01:13:40.320 | And if you were going to interview, say, some advisors in your local community,

01:13:44.320 | you know, walk down the street to the local Merrill Lynch office.

01:13:47.320 | At a minimum, you ought to take a look at the registry

01:13:50.320 | and interview a couple of people in your local community that you know,

01:13:54.320 | and then interview a couple of people from the registry that you may not know,

01:13:59.320 | and then compare them to each other.

01:14:01.320 | And then ideally, you're going to make the most objective decision you can,

01:14:05.320 | given the circumstances.

01:14:08.320 | Jack, thanks for coming on today. I appreciate your being here.

01:14:11.320 | My pleasure. Thank you very much.

01:14:14.320 | Going forward on Radical Personal Finance,

01:14:16.320 | you're going to hear me mention Paladin Registry many, many times.

01:14:19.320 | But I'd always like to start and launch a sponsorship with this type of approach,

01:14:24.320 | an in-depth discussion of strengths and weaknesses

01:14:27.320 | and where a particular sponsor can fit in.

01:14:30.320 | And I believe that Paladin will serve many of you well.

01:14:36.320 | If you have ever thought about hiring a financial advisor,

01:14:38.320 | or if you'd like to talk to some financial advisors

01:14:41.320 | and see if they might be worthy of your business,

01:14:44.320 | start with Paladin Registry.

01:14:46.320 | The link that I want you to use, it's on the website.

01:14:49.320 | But if you want to navigate there directly,

01:14:51.320 | go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin, P-A-L-A-D-I-N, Paladin.

01:14:59.320 | Go there directly and that will take you through it.

01:15:01.320 | Just click the ad on the site.

01:15:03.320 | And if you click through, you need to put in the information,

01:15:05.320 | put in your name, your contact info, and the asset center management.

01:15:11.320 | It's important to help to get the appropriate advisor.

01:15:16.320 | And feel free to interview people.

01:15:18.320 | Now, you should feel at this point,

01:15:20.320 | after listening to Radical Personal Finance for quite a while,

01:15:23.320 | you should feel much more confident and much more equipped

01:15:25.320 | to meet with a financial advisor than just most people in the general public.

01:15:29.320 | You shouldn't be intimidated by a financial advisor.

01:15:32.320 | I believe most advisors will be very –

01:15:34.320 | I mean a good advisor will be very thankful to work with a client who's knowledgeable.

01:15:39.320 | So, check them out. See if you find somebody who gets you.

01:15:43.320 | Feel free to interview multiple advisors.

01:15:45.320 | You take it from there. I'm not involved in that process.

01:15:48.320 | But I do think that this is a good place to start

01:15:50.320 | rather than just necessarily trotting into the office that's around the corner near you.

01:15:55.320 | Hey, you might trot in there and check them out too.

01:15:57.320 | But at least this way, there's a little bit of a vetting process in place.

01:16:00.320 | And I hope that that will serve you.

01:16:02.320 | Did a lot of research on Paladin. Never heard anything negative.

01:16:06.320 | And so, I hope that they can be useful to you.

01:16:08.320 | I feel really happy about having them as a sponsor of the show.

01:16:11.320 | So, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/Paladin or just go to the website.

01:16:15.320 | Click the link in the show notes or just go to the website and click the "@."

01:16:20.320 | That's it for today's show.

01:16:23.320 | Let me know your experiences.

01:16:25.320 | I would love to get some personal feedback as many of you go there and interview them.

01:16:30.320 | I would love to get your personal feedback as to how your experiences are.

01:16:33.320 | Please always email me, Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com.

01:16:36.320 | Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com.

01:16:39.320 | And let me know.

01:16:40.320 | So, obviously, it's a little bit of a risk when I start introducing you to people.

01:16:44.320 | But I believe this is a good place to start.

01:16:46.320 | But, of course, I want to hear feedback from you directly.

01:16:49.320 | So, email me when you go and meet with them.

01:16:52.320 | Thank you all so much for listening to today's show.

01:16:55.320 | Thank you for listening to these interviews.

01:16:58.320 | In October here, we hope to be back to the better normal schedule of Radical Personal Finance

01:17:02.320 | with fewer interview shows, but it was necessary for a time.

01:17:06.320 | I appreciate each and every one of you for paying attention.

01:17:09.320 | I appreciate each and every one of you who supports the show, both through visiting our sponsors

01:17:13.320 | and also those of you who support the show on Patreon.

01:17:16.320 | End of September, the goal here is 250 total patrons.

01:17:19.320 | So, I don't know. I'm pre-recording this far in advance.

01:17:22.320 | So, we'll see how we did.

01:17:24.320 | Go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

01:17:26.320 | You'll see whether we hit that goal.

01:17:27.320 | Hey, if we want to demolish the goal, if you get there and we're at 270, wouldn't that be cool?

01:17:31.320 | Hey, demolish it.

01:17:33.320 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

01:17:36.320 | Also, please tell a friend about the show if you've enjoyed it, found it useful.

01:17:39.320 | Just tell a friend, say, "Search the App Store for Radical Personal Finance," and you can listen.

01:17:43.320 | That's also extremely useful.

01:17:46.320 | Ratings and reviews are also helpful.

01:17:48.320 | And I think that's it for my announcements.

01:17:52.320 | I'll be back with you all soon.

01:17:54.320 | Make sure to check out Paladin Registry.

01:17:55.320 | Go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/Paladin or click the link in the show notes.

01:17:58.320 | And I'm out of here.

01:17:59.320 | Cheers, y'all.

01:18:00.320 | [Music]

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01:19:05.320 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

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