Kurt Dupuis:
Welcome to the Whole Truth, where two wholesalers help financial professionals build great practices and thrive in a rapidly changing industry. We bring you the stories and voices from those on the front lines of this change. And we'll have some fun along the way.
Steve Seid:
This is more than a podcast. We're building a community of financial professionals who are growing, forward-thinking and want to get better. Thanks for listening and contributing to the discussion.
Disclosure:
The views expressed herein are those of the participants and not those of Touchstone Investments.
Steve Seid:
And welcome everybody to The Whole Truth. From the Bay Area, California, I am Steve Seid.
Kurt Dupuis:
And from Atlanta, Georgia, I am Kurt Dupuis. I always make fun of how you say that, "I am." The view I just got in my brain just now was, "I'm Batman."
Steve Seid:
I literally am at the point where I don't know how to say it appropriately.
Kurt Dupuis:
And that's what... I love it.
Steve Seid:
And the fact that you laughed now-
Kurt Dupuis:
I live rent-free in your head with how to say this.
Steve Seid:
I know. And the fact that I see you laughing every time makes it even worse. So, announcement, we're going to have to change that intro at some point because I don't know how to say it without hating myself, is really what it comes down to.
Kurt Dupuis:
Well, I might have gone too far then. So, I want to talk about something a little bit before we get into our interview today. And really, I want to convince financial professionals that they need to pay more attention to social media. So many people are scared to dip their toes in the water. I'm going to try to build a case for why you should start thinking about it. And also, give you something practical that you can do about it. So, are you ready for that?
Steve Seid:
Let me clarify because I do see a lot of financial professionals using it. Are you suggesting they're not using it... they're not thinking deeply about it and they're just doing it generically? Or they're not spending a lot of time with it? Because I do see people on there, of course.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, let me be clear. I'm talking about LinkedIn. And if you simply post, the firm approved stuff once a month or twice a month. You're probably not seeing good results.
Steve Seid:
Right. I see where you're going.
Kurt Dupuis:
And you probably think, “Why do I need to waste any time on this?”
Steve Seid:
I'm doing it, but I don't really know why I'm doing it. Maybe it's beneficial. Maybe it's not. Yeah, that, I buy it. I'm on board.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, like our PAR process, we both like numbers. I want to start with some numbers.
Steve Seid:
Sure.
Kurt Dupuis:
And by the way, both of these stats came from Twitter from a girl named @SamanthaTwenty. She runs a digital online marketing company, got really, really good content, really good ideas. So, she tweeted about a Pew Research report that said-
Steve Seid:
Okay, good. I'm glad you got there, because Pew, I can believe. But when you start to say it comes from Twitter from SamanthaTwenty, I'm like, "Well, that has to be true."
Kurt Dupuis:
No, she's quoting Pew Research. So, I feel like it's legit.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. Okay. I'm with you.
Kurt Dupuis:
It's not like Steve Seid's Basement Statistics Company. So, which Americans use social media? That's the question. Because the general idea is, go to the platforms your customers are using. And a lot of people I think wrongly think, "My clients and prospects are not on Facebook, they're not on Twitter. They're not on Snapchat. They're not on all these things." So, I'm going to refute that a little bit. The number, the percentage, and you're going to guess Seid, the number of 20- to 49-year-olds that use social media, very generic question.
Steve Seid:
Oh, it's got to be super high. I'm almost going to say like 90%.
Kurt Dupuis:
Twenty to 49, I thought if it was 20, it would be higher, but that 20 to 49, 81%.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, I wasn't that far off. I was in the range. Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
Okay, what about when we go up, 50 to 64 years of age?
Steve Seid:
That's a good one. So, I know we've gotten to the point where people view some of the older social sites as dinosaurs because grandma is on there now, right?
Kurt Dupuis:
Which of the older ones?
Steve Seid:
Like Facebook.
Kurt Dupuis:
Like Bookface? Okay.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, don't people view... and by the way, I'm on one social site, which is LinkedIn. So, I'm like, I know nothing about any of this stuff, but I feel like that's the case where the new generation of folks are gravitating to other things. So, I'm going to say 50%.
Kurt Dupuis:
73%.
Steve Seid:
Wow.
Kurt Dupuis:
Right? And that, for prospect, for financial professionals that want to get new life into their business with a client base that has assets, 50 to 64 is a good chunk. Three quarters of them are on socials.
Steve Seid:
There you go.
Kurt Dupuis:
Sixty-five and older, what percentage are on social?
Steve Seid:
Well, it's going to be higher than I think, and I can't guess 50%. I'm going to say 65%.
Kurt Dupuis:
45%.
Steve Seid:
Okay.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, you overshot that one. But the point is, people are on social media, okay? I want to break this down a little bit more though. So, here's another study from The SPECTRUM Group. So, they interviewed people with 25 million or more in assets and asked similar questions. And I'll just tell you, this is what they found. 70% of this cohort use Facebook. 52% use YouTube. 51% use Twitter. 39% use LinkedIn. 32% use Snapchat, and 23% use TikTok. Would you have ever guessed that 20... a quarter of the people with 25 million liquid are on TikTok?
Steve Seid:
The LinkedIn number seems a little low to me, doesn't it? Does that strike you as low or no?
Kurt Dupuis:
No, that seems about right.
Steve Seid:
That's about right?
Kurt Dupuis:
I mean, LinkedIn's got an interesting reputation because if you're 25 million or more, you're probably an entrepreneur. You probably don't care about what jobs people are getting. And that's-
Steve Seid:
Yeah, good point. Good point.
Kurt Dupuis:
LinkedIn's origins are looking for jobs, finding jobs, updating on jobs, right? It's grown to a lot more, but I think that's what a lot of people think of it as.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, okay. That's fair.
Kurt Dupuis:
Okay. So, to the best of your ability, and as another disclaimer, we are not with compliance. So, every firm is different. Check with your compliance department, but you should start thinking about being on social. So, there's another organization called The Oechsli Institute, which they're great. I'm on their email list. They do videos that are really high-quality - they teach you about lighting. They have a service where they will give you a script, and I'm not here to sell their wares, but it seems really cool. Well in their blog, they have a post that's titled, Financial Advisors 20-Minute LinkedIn Routine.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, if you think like LinkedIn is a platform, like I know my clients are on here because they are changing jobs or looking for jobs. They're interacting with people. If that's an ecosystem that you want to invest in, it's a checklist. It's pretty simple things that you can do every day in 10 or 20 minutes that just make it more engaging.
Steve Seid:
And so, we're assuming right now that they're probably doing a lot less than this. So, this is like, "Okay, you want to step up? Here's a way to do it."
Kurt Dupuis:
Yep. And so, if you want this blog, we'll send you the article. Or we can go through this more in more detail. So, reach out to us at thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com. I'm happy to share this and share some ideas, but it's such simple stuff. But I think because every platform is a little bit different, you may not know what boxes to check. So, I'm going to run through this very quickly. But number one, pretty obvious. But check your messages and respond just like you would with email.
If someone sends you a connection request, if someone sends you a message, just respond. Number two, every day, click my network just to see activity, who's posted something? Who is moving around? What's of note? Three, review notifications, and look for opportunities to engage. So, this is a big one, looking for opportunities to engage. So, it's not just posting your firm's pre-approved content, which that's fine, and you should do that. And we'll talk about what other stuff to post as well.
But liking other comments, writing in the comment section, the normal stuff you would do on Facebook or any other social, you should be doing that stuff on the regular. Number four, connect with 25 new prospects, and deploy a messaging sequence. So, this is going to get a little bit into the weeds. So, we're not going to go into this. But this is a really good thoughtful way to start engaging with people. And just so you know, this is not, "Hey, my name is Bob. I'm a financial professional at X firm. Would you like to take a meeting?"
A softer approach to actually develop relationship over time, I think is the approach that most people recommend.
Steve Seid:
Let's put a pin in that because I wrote down a couple of things. I wanted you to lead the way because you're way better at this stuff than I am. But I wrote down three things that I wanted to talk about as pertaining to LinkedIn. So, one of them is that specifically. So, let's go ahead and come back to that.
Kurt Dupuis:
Okay, yeah. Five is sending personalized connections. So, don't just hit connect. Actually, write a message to the person you're connecting with. Spend 30 seconds. Find out something about them, someone you know in common, something they're interested in. Don't just click send without a personal touch. Number six, touch base with dormant connections. So, people you haven't talked to in a while. Make sure to reach out to those, keep front and center. Seven, find a new introduction opportunity.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, in the article, they talked about how you can search your current connections for potential new contacts. Their algorithm will recommend people to connect with. Do that. Eight, stay top of mind by sharing an update. So, there's the firm pre-approved stuff, which you should definitely be posting because that stuff is valuable. But if you hire a new assistant, if you get a new office space, heck, if you get a new desk chair, people, it's social. People want to interact. They want to know what's going on.
Putting up a wreath on the front of your sign, people care about this stuff. You'll probably find that those types of posts are going to get 10, 20 times more interactions than the pre-approved firm stuff.
Steve Seid:
Totally agree. The personal stuff I just see gets so much more responses than anything business-related at all.
Kurt Dupuis:
Right. Because it is social, and people forget that, especially with LinkedIn. I think they think it's a business site. And that, yeah, you can conduct business. You can find prospects. You can even connect with existing clients through it. But it's a social website at the end of the day.
Steve Seid:
Right.
Kurt Dupuis:
Nine, make a handful of meaningful comments on your connections posts, not just like, "Good job!" And then, last but not least, number 10, see who's viewed your profile. You can actually turn that off so that if you're going to somebody's profile, they can't see when you've looked. But most people don't. So, if they clicked on your profile, you can see. So, definitely something to check out because you might be able to see clients or prospects that are looking at your page. So, if you're interested in this list, I see this as a checklist.
Kurt Dupuis:
If you just want to start flexing your LinkedIn muscles, this is a great place to start. And I've used this with a number of clients when talking about how to just get more engagement on socials.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, I think that's a great thing. You're telling me that you've been working with people on this. They're just like, "Hey, I'm doing social media, I don't even know why I'm doing it." And so, you're just helping them ramp it up because like anything else, more time, more dedication, it probably gets you results. And so, if you're going to do something, do it right. And so, I would love to start working with some of my folks on there. Let's really see if we can get something out of it because time is too valuable to waste.
There are three things that I wrote down. Some of this were things that popped in my mind. The other was reflecting back on the Pollard conversation we had around this. And so, the three things I wrote down was, one was stats. And this was James Pollard who talked about it, like knowing exactly the stats that you want to hit and where you are relative to that, like what's your connection rate? What's your acceptance rate? What's your close rate?
And so, are you getting and hitting the threshold you want? Like anything else and having the stats, is going to make you better about it. The second one was what I asked you to put a pin in, which was like how to do this in a way that's not super generic? I've not had too many people approach me in a way that even felt close to natural, and I think I would be receptive if they did. I really do. If I was at a networking event, in-person, how would I go about approaching people?
How would I start conversations?" And then, approach it that way as opposed to the way most people do it, I think there's big differentiation there.
Kurt Dupuis:
Well, let me use a non-industry example. A guy on LinkedIn who owns and runs a video marketing video content company. So, he helps businesses create video content. But then, helps them plug it into their business. He reached out very casual, explained his value proposition. And I was like, "Well, I'm interested in playing with video a little bit, I'll reach out." We got on a 30-minute Zoom, had a great chat. At the end of it, decided, "This probably isn't going to be a good fit, me as a wholesaler, you working directly with business owners. It's just not going to work."
But he's had great stuff, great ideas, great... very thoughtful. So, we used the platform to connect in a digital way and then just saw that, "Hey, we've got enough to warrant a conversation." So, we had digital coffee. We went to the equivalent of a digital cup of coffee together. And it's like, wow, this is a really good exchange of ideas. That's a great use of the platform in my opinion.
Steve Seid:
So few people are getting that right. And the other one was a question mark, I think everyone knows this, but you tell me. Does everyone know to follow and connect with their own clients on there? Does everyone know that?
Kurt Dupuis:
They do not because that's one of the things that we talk about. Because this, again, back to the social part of social media, so when you're posting pictures of your new chair or the decorations around the holidays, you want clients to see that, not just prospects. And then, the more engagement you get with your existing clients, the more likely you are that prospects are going to see that like, "Wow, they seem to have a really good connection," yeah, that's a no-brainer, connect with clients.
Steve Seid:
Talk about referrals and things like that, connect with all your clients. Do it. See what they're involved with. Maybe if you see your clients are involved in certain, I don't know, groups, then all of a sudden, you're like, "Oh, I've got five clients in this group. Why am I not involved with it?"
Kurt Dupuis:
I've been doing some research on referrals, how people get them, how to create an environment for them. But one of the key takeaways is you have to create an environment where people want to recommend you. So, if you are interacting with clients and a prospect sees that, when the client and the prospect that know each other are out in public, and they're grabbing dinner it’s like, "Oh, yeah, I saw you're a financial professional, like they posted this... a cat video," I don't know, but something memorable, boom.
Segue to start talking about, "Yeah, they're actually really great at what they do as well."
Steve Seid:
They're great, yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, you're just helping create that environment of being referable.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, and you can learn more about your clients. "I saw you were doing this," when you're thinking about that unique client touchpoint, right?
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, stuff they'll never share with you in a review meeting.
Steve Seid:
Exactly, right. So, anyways, no, I thought this was good, Kurt. And we'll do more on this. I think really what we've done here is started the conversation. And we'll spend some more time building expertise around LinkedIn and helping you guys, because I know it's a topic that matters to everyone who wants to grow. So, we're going to jump into our interview with Tom Singler. We love to have people on the show that work with and that are in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of financial professionals, and suck out the wisdom from that like, what did you learn?
Tom is a member of our investment specialist group. He's been with the firm for a really long time, but he does a lot of work with that practice analysis report that we always talk about. He's worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of financial professionals. So, we're like, "Hey, come on and tell us what you learned, the good, the bad, the stuff we're not even thinking about." And it was a great, great discussion. We think you'll enjoy it. We'll be right back with our interview with Tom Singler.
This is The Whole Truth. Stick with us.
Steve Seid: All right. Welcome, everybody. We are joined by our very, very good friend, Tom Singler. How are you, man?
Tom Singler:
I'm doing well.
Steve Seid:
Thanks for joining.
Tom Singler:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Steve Seid:
Tom is a legend at this point at our firm. He's been a big part of our PAR process, our practice management process. Most people, at least who've done work with me, know him pretty darn well. So, we're excited to have him on. The backstory is he's one of those rare people that has interacted with financial professionals across the country. We're talking hundreds of thousands of reps diving deep into their books, and we're going to talk to him a little bit about that today. Is that fair, Tom?
Tom Singler:
It may sound like you said hundreds of thousands, but maybe hundreds or thousands?
Steve Seid:
Hundreds or thousands. Yeah, that's right.
Kurt Dupuis:
I heard the same thing similar.
Tom Singler:
Thousands is fair.
Steve Seid:
So, you're saying I'm overdoing it?
Tom Singler:
I just don't want to be hyperbolic right off the bat.
Steve Seid:
That's fair. I was also talking to Kurt before we hopped on here, Tom. You're also the guy that I go to when I'm about to make some weird purchase that no one I know would have done research on that. I just bought a new chair from my office because the old one squeaked, and it was ruining the podcast and making our engineers go crazy.
Kurt Dupuis:
I'm hoping that we can... we're going to get into today about golf clubs and what PING's new line is, and what clubs you need from PING's lineup, what you don't need. Not a sponsor, but maybe they will be, but if anybody's going to have that intel, Singler is the guy.
Tom Singler:
I have you both now wearing SuitSupply suits when you suit up and go back to the office.
Kurt Dupuis:
I might own one or two of those
Steve Seid:
All right. Yeah, and I was telling Kurt, he's like, "What kind of chairs?" I picked off Amazon. But Tom, he'd tell you to buy the office chair XL 4000 with reclining speakers.
Tom Singler:
Well, think of how much time you spend in your chair every day.
Steve Seid:
You hear this?
Kurt Dupuis:
It's so Singler.
Steve Seid:
Dude, you need to be in advertise... what is the word? Because I'm not... is it influencer? Is Tom an influencer?
Tom Singler:
I was born a little bit too early to be an IG influencer, but I think that is my true calling.
Steve Seid:
I'm actually thinking about a new segment where you just cover something like, "Tom, tell us what the best new SUVs are for 2021. And Tom, tell us-"
Kurt Dupuis:
Singler style.
Tom Singler:
Yeah, we have that conversation. Yeah.
Steve Seid:
It's funny, Kurt and I are both laughing. And he's like, "This is deadly serious.”
Tom Singler:
Yeah, exactly.
Steve Seid:
That's awesome. Well, we'll have to talk about that. Because I think maybe what we'll do is we'll ask our community topics and say, "What do you want to research?"
Kurt Dupuis:
Tom will do it. There you go.
Steve Seid:
We'll have Tom run off and do that.
Tom Singler:
Tom’ Pick of the Week, SUVs, office chairs, suits, golf clubs, tennis rackets--
Steve Seid:
The main reason we're having Tom on is we're going to tap into that big brain of his. You got top five things that you found from working with advisors.
Tom Singler:
Top five takeaways from successful teams through the practice analysis review partnerships for the last seven years now.
Steve Seid:
Okay. And are they in any particular order?
Tom Singler:
I tried to make them go in order.
Steve Seid:
All right well, let's just jump right into it. We'll take it one at a time.
Tom Singler:
Yeah. Well, I'm more curious too because you mentioned that my top five you maybe didn't expect.
Steve Seid:
You read these. And then, at the end, I'll comment to why I didn't expect these top five.
Tom Singler:
So, number one I think is a big one just right off the bat. The biggest thing you need to have is the mental outlook that a financial advisor role - it is not a job. It is a lifestyle. If you set out every day to clock in at 8:00 and clock out at 5:00, and leave your job behind a desk, that mentality does not lead to success down the road. It is a lifestyle as a financial advisor. It is not a job.
A financial advisor, their clients, their goals never stop, right? Maybe they want to buy a beach house and you're on vacation, you can't just all of a sudden ignore their call for two weeks. At some point, I think you become large enough where you have the CSAs in place. You have your systems. You have a team around you that can cater to their needs as well. But many people think that they're going to have that day one, and they don't actually want to work to get there.
Steve Seid:
And is this from the observation that I've worked with all these financial professionals, and the ones that I see doing well approach it that way? And the ones that I see are not doing well are not approaching it that way? Is that how you drew this conclusion? I was talking about being surprised, this is not something that's on our dashboard or anything like that. So, that's why I was surprised it was outside of the observations that I thought you would have said.
Tom Singler:
Yeah and I think a lot of it too has to do with the mentality now of what we would call a modern wealth practice versus a broker or brokerage. If you're coming in at 9:00 and you're leaving at 4:00 when the market closes, you're very transactional, you're not focused on any goals-based investing, you're not focused on building relationships with your clients, you're there to simply take orders. And the teams that want to see sustainable growth over time and continue to climb within the office or complex rankings, and become more efficient and a sustainable business as a team or a FA, they don't have that time clock mentality.
Steve Seid:
But if you don't want to work 24 hours a day, you can build that in and still be a good advisor by limiting the number of clients that you have, having the support staff to handle it, et cetera, et cetera. Is that fair to say too?
Tom Singler:
Yeah, exactly. I think a piece of that too is some of the other points I have, where at the bottom end of the book is most likely killing most advisors because they're working too much and focused too much on those people that don't contribute to the overall success of the business.
Two was, quantify your worth and formulate a proper value proposition. I would say almost every advisor I sit down with has no idea how much your time is worth. And we calculate that for them on the dashboard, and it's eye-opening to a lot of people. They don't think their time is worth what it's actually worth, and we break down how much they're generating in terms of revenue on an annual basis versus we do market hour, which is 1,600 to 25 hours. The other way to do it is the average 40-hour workweek. Oftentimes, more than half are paying them less than their hourly rate on an annual basis. So, make sure we understand how much your time is worth and where you're focusing that time and attention.
Are you actually being properly compensated for that as opposed to just spinning your wheels on some people that are more so a customer than they are a client? They don't necessarily take your advice. They don't have any long-term growth potential.
Kurt Dupuis:
This is about two years ago, we started introducing this revenue by market hour into the dashboard, right?
Tom Singler:
Yeah. So, we partnered with a new firm in the fall of '18, and they actually populated it internally and spread it across all seven of our partner firms now that we're doing with. And really, if you can give us a revenue number, we could give it to any advisor no matter where they're at. But it has really opened a lot of eyes. You drive down the street to a mechanic, that mechanic can tell you right off the bat, "Hey, I'm going to charge you X for just my hours to work on the car."
Or if you go to a lawyer, say you're getting divorced, or whatever it is you need a lawyer, they're going to charge a, "My retainer is X per hour." No one walks into a financial advisor, and the financial advisor says, "Okay, I'm going to charge you X per hour because that's what I get for my wealth management." They may charge you X for a plan, but there's no hourly retainer or rate. So, it's just, it's a mentality that hasn't really creeped in yet to the financial industry. But when you break it down by hour, and then realize your clients and your segmentations, and what people are actually generating, it can be quite eye-opening.
Kurt Dupuis:
I remember kind of like my eyes widening when we started introducing this idea, because it's not because the number matters, because the number doesn't matter. What matters is changing behavior. And when suddenly, you're going from a construct that just says, "Oh, yeah, I'd like to do these things. I don't know how much time they'd actually take. And I really have no idea how much my time is worth." When you can show what your time is worth, it really makes people think more critically, which is the behavioral change about, where am I investing in marketing? How much time can I legitimately spend with these people?
Tom Singler:
Yeah. I think too to that point, the second piece of my, number two, was a proper value proposition, which we've helped a lot of teams formulate that. A lot of teams we start off with, just say, I focus on high-net-worth clients. First of all, they've heard that from 17 different advisors as they shop around.
But you're not telling me anything. So, think about what you actually offer. Maybe it's a 24-hour resolution guarantee or a four-hour callback time, or something very specific like that. Or maybe you have a niche within that firm and he's working with, and you know the benefits plan inside and out. You have to really have a specific value prop as to why that individual needs to work with you and you can meet their needs.
Steve Seid:
Excellent, good one. All right, item three.
Tom Singler:
All right, item three was, chances are you have too many clients, you absolutely need clients in rotation and a proactive service model to have sustainable growth. These are two different things. Although, I would say you can't have one without the other, really. Or if you have one without the other, they're both useless. And so, what we need to do first is really say, how much time do you have in your day? How many clients can you actually service for that time? And then, from there understand, okay, what does my book look like today?
And do I need to get rid of anybody to meet those parameters established? Do I have room for growth? Do I need to hire another team member or maybe another assistant, or a junior FA? But how do we make this work? And then, from there, we can back into how many segments do I have in my book? We, more often than not, run into teams and FAs, and again, they can be very successful, but they can't tell you the difference between an A client and a C client other than one maybe has $2 million and one has $100,000.
There's a lot of times where that $100,000 client pays them more than the $2 million client. But typically, because assets, the $2 million is an A and the $100,000 is a C, or however, gold, silver, bronze. So, there's a lot more factors that need to go into client segmentation than just assets or revenue. Do you like working with them? Do they give you referrals? Are they a center of influence, things of that nature? But from there, once we have those segmentations, what do they actually get for being in that segment?
So, that's a huge game-changer we introduced in the last 12 months, I would say, just allowing you to calculate the segmentation. And then also, quantifying what that service model would look like in the real hours.
Steve Seid:
I'm curious about how you talk about the bottom of the book. You made the comment there, do you have too many clients? What is an hour of your time worth? The question that I have for you is, what are you seeing teams actually do about that other than the ones that are ignoring it?
One is, do you see teams getting rid of clients, adding staff, spending time trying to get more out of that bottom book, all of the above? What's the solution that “set” that you're seeing?
Tom Singler:
Yeah. So, the answer is all of the above. And the other answer is, success rates vary greatly by team and ethic. And it's not always the bottom of the book. Don't think of this as just as asset revenue. A lot of teams look at the overall client profile. And maybe they have $3 million, but there sitting in individual stocks that are not adding any value in terms of revenue to the team. They call in and get quotes every once in a while for them to get into stocks.
Would you rather have them on a go forward basis or someone who's maybe a 27-year-old doctor with 25 grand that you know in the long run is going to continue to grow that account? So, we're seeing more clients with larger asset bases being exiled out of the book than just the bottom end based on simply assets. Or the senior FA just doesn't want to deal with it anymore. And so, he can kick it off to the junior and let them try to build that relationship and become more profitable. There's a lot of different ways to do it. Some firms have a call center, you can kick them too as well. So, that's always an option.
Kurt Dupuis:
Rolling to number four because this... the way you phrased it at least, I think is my favorite one on this list.
Tom Singler:
Number four, stop treating the bottom of the book like a lottery ticket. And when we work with teams and FAs, they have this mentality that they can't part ways with any relationship because you never know who's going to win the lottery.
And there's always somebody in the office that will say, "Oh, well, Joe down the hallway, he had a client where his mom died and gave him 25 million bucks. Actually, I was in an office. I think we were in St. Louis, and somebody had told us a story like that. And we actually met with “Joe” down the hallway, his name wasn't really Joe. And we asked him about that. And he said well that is just a story that they made up for 20 years, not really true.
And just to clarify, when we look at the bottom bucket, we mean the cutoff is 4% of assets and 4% of revenue. So, by definition, the bottom bucket does not eclipse, either 4% of assets or revenue.
Another way to say that is you could eliminate the bucket and still make 96% of your current revenue. So, when you look at what's going on in those accounts, and this gets into number five, is you don't spend enough time with them on an annual basis. It just doesn't make sense in today's environment. So, really examining who is in your business as a client? Who is the customer, and who do you want to continue that relationship with going forward, I think is more important now than ever.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, wait, what was number five?
Tom Singler:
So, number five is, everyone goes, “Oh I know exactly what I own.” And to be fair, they know what they own in their models. Everyone has a “Buy” list that's 35 or 40 mutual funds, ETFs, and they have their ideal stocks. But we look at the broad book of business and the holdings they have. On average, a typical FA has 370 mutual funds and ETFs. And when I say mutual funds, that's where we roll up share classes. So, when you think about that on a ticker basis, that 370, all of a sudden, it becomes 450 or 500.
And that's across brokerage advisory. So, orphan fund, where you only have one share class variation per strategy, and only one client owns it across the book - those are heavily concentrated to the tune of greater than 50% within that bottom 4% bucket.
Steve Seid:
That was a great top five.
Tom Singler:
So, what wasn't on my list that you thought would be there?
Steve Seid:
No. My thought was that you were going to pull things that were directly off the dashboard. And you did some of that, like with orphan funds. And you did that with segmentation. Where I didn't think you'd go, things like lifestyle practices-
Kurt Dupuis:
Value propositions, yeah.
Steve Seid:
Things like value proposition. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know that you're going to go there, which is awesome. I mean, again, the value of having you on is the fact that you've interacted with all of these different teams. I'm like, "I wonder where he's going to go," and a couple of them surprised me. That's all.
Tom Singler:
Yeah, I think the things that I've learned over time is you can quantify things, and I can get a pretty good idea from those as what potential that team or FA have to move the needle. But you don't really know until you meet the advisor or the team and hear their thoughts on the business as to whether or not they have the wherewithal or the mentality to actually take it seriously and move the needle themselves. We can give you everything you need to pick up the phone and call the client. But we can't call the client for you.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, that's a good point. All right. Well, thanks to our great friend, Tom Singler. I am sure you'll hear him again. We might even have his own segment. We'll have to think of a fun name for it. Kurt always has a good name, so we'll be okay with that, but we'll be right back. This is The Whole Truth. Stick with us.
Kurt Dupuis:
And welcome back to The Whole Truth. And welcome to our Costanza Corner where we like to end the show on a high note. Steve, what do you got for us today?
Steve Seid:
I was just telling Kurt before we started recording, we should probably be donating to something called the Good News Network because I've gotten so many of my positive Constanza Corner from that website. They do an awesome job.
Kurt Dupuis:
Ditto.
Steve Seid:
And basically, this is the one that really had me chuckling a little bit this week was, it was an article about 10 myths that we should give up. So, things that everyone thinks are true but are really not true.
Kurt Dupuis:
Ok.
Steve Seid:
And I won't go through all 10, but can I give you a couple of them just for fun?
Kurt Dupuis:
Sure. You know where my brain immediately goes is our conversation with Dr. Crosby where he's like, "What is something that you know to be true that your kids and their generation will completely mythbust?"
Steve Seid:
Completely. Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Kurt Dupuis:
I live every day in fear like, what am I thinking about that's completely wrong? So, you're probably about to tell me a couple.
Steve Seid:
All right. So, there's 10 of them here. Let me give you... first of all, this one is great. You should urinate on it if someone gets stung by a jellyfish. So, you know when you get stung by a jellyfish and everyone's peeing on each other?
Kurt Dupuis:
Wait, that's not true?
Steve Seid:
Not true at all. There's absolutely no science... the Mayo Clinic says, "There is no scientific basis for this." I was laughing because I'm like, "Who made this up?" Is that great or what?
Kurt Dupuis:
You set really high bar with that one. I hope the rest are as good as that one.
Steve Seid:
The rest aren't going to be this funny. I thought that was great. This one I thought was interesting as a dog owner. Have you ever heard that dogs can only see in black and white? That's not true at all. They can actually see in colors.
Kurt Dupuis:
I don't think that was a myth that needed busting for me.
Steve Seid:
All right. If you touch a baby bird with your bare hands, its mother will reject it. This is not a true statement.
Kurt Dupuis:
Really?
Steve Seid:
Yes.
Kurt Dupuis:
No, I'm not kidding you. Last week, my neighbor, who had been fostering some...she has a little bird's nest, all the little chicks flew away, she took the nest out, and there was one egg on there. And my three-year-old was like, "Oh, this egg, I should squeeze this." Squeezed it, it got all over her, and was crying and whatever. But I used that as a lesson to say, "If you ever see an egg or a baby bird, don't..." I said this exact same thing, and you're telling me I'm lying to her?
Steve Seid:
Well, she probably shouldn't touch it anyway. So, the outcome is right, right? Because you shouldn't really-
Kurt Dupuis:
But the reasoning is flawed.
Steve Seid:
The reasoning is flawed. I thought that was interesting because I thought that was true. Okay, here's a good one that's Seinfeld-related. You’ll like this.
Kurt Dupuis:
Love it.
Steve Seid:
Shaving your hair makes it grow back thicker. You remember that one when Kramer's like if you start shaving your chest, that thing with Jerry? It was like, "Look at it." But actually, there's no scientific basis for that at all.
Kurt Dupuis:
Oh, good. So, I can go back to shaving my chest. Wonderful.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, yeah. So, you can get back to it. I'll just throw one more out there. This one isn't fun or anything but I thought was interesting because-
Kurt Dupuis:
These have been great so far.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, is this not uplifting? The last one that I'll share is, cracking your knuckles too much will cause arthritis. Cracking your knuckles does no harm at all to our joints and does not lead to arthritis. Don't do that. It creeps me out when people crack their... oh no, don't do it. Don't do it. I hate that sound. Oh my God, please stop.
Kurt Dupuis:
That's so good to know because I can't stop cracking my knuckles. But I just thought, "I'm going to lose dexterity by the time I'm 50." But that's the price I pay. So, thank you for alleviating that concern. Those are some really good ones in there.
Steve Seid:
Thanks, everyone, for listening. We'll see you next time.
Kurt Dupuis:
See y'all.
Steve Seid:
You can find The Whole Truth and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find the show. And for more episodes of The Whole Truth, go to www.touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholetruth. That's touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholetruth, all one word.
