In this episode, Jason and Dasarte share their secrets to approaching client meetings. From the first meeting to sustaining relationships, they both detail how they have been able to take their firms to the next level by mastering their connections to clients. ABOUT ALTRUIST: We’re on a mission to make financial advice better, more affordable, and more accessible to everyone. Altruist is an all-in-one platform built exclusively to help RIAs start, run, and grow their practices. Our platform saves you time and reduces your costs: You can manage your entire book of business, get performance reporting, and bill your clients with ease and efficiency. Want to find out how Altruist can help you grow? See more at www.altruist.com/podcasts
EPISODE SUMMARY:
In this episode, Jason and Dasarte share their secrets to approaching client meetings. From the first meeting to sustaining relationships, they both detail how they have been able to take their firms to the next level by mastering their connections to their clients.
ABOUT ALTRUIST:
We’re on a mission to make financial advice better, more affordable, and more accessible to everyone. Altruist is an all-in-one platform built exclusively to help RIAs start, run, and grow their practices. Our platform saves you time and reduces your costs: You can manage your entire book of business, get performance reporting, and bill your clients with ease and efficiency.
Want to find out how Altruist can help you grow? See more at www.altruist.com/podcasts
STAY CONNECTED:
Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/altruistcorp/
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/altruist
Linkedin ► https://www.linkedin.com/company/altruistcorp/
RESOURCES IN EPISODE:
For more tips on how to grow and scale your RIA, subscribe to The Advisor Journey at www. altruist.com/podcasts, on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
ABOUT THE ADVISOR JOURNEY:
Real-life strategies for the modern financial advisor who’s ready to scale. Join Altruist founder and CEO Jason Wenk, Altruist’s Head of Community Dasarte Yarnway, and guests as they share proven tactics, unfiltered advice, and hard-won lessons you can apply to your own practice. These conversations will propel your career to the next level—don’t miss it.
Disclaimer:
Altruist Corp ("Altruist") offers technology and tools designed to help financial advisors achieve better outcomes. Advisory and certain other services are provided by Altruist LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser, and brokerage related products and services are provided by Altruist Financial LLC, a member of FINRA/SIPC. Nothing in this communication should be construed as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Additionally, Altruist or its affiliates do not provide tax advice and investors are encouraged to consult with their personal tax advisors. Clearing and custody of securities provided by Altruist Financial LLC. © 2023 Altruist Corp 3030 S La Cienega Blvd Culver City, CA 90232.
Speaker: Altruist is making financial advice more affordable and more accessible for all. Do you have a compelling growth story for your RIA firm? Have you found success in serving your client community? If so, we want you on the show. Visit altruist.com/podcasts to apply to be our next guest on The Advisor Journey. We can't wait to chat with you.
Jason: All right. Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us on The Advisor Journey. I'm Jason Wenk, and joining me is my partner in wealth, Dasarte Yarnway. Today, we've got a really fun episode. When you're talking about first meetings, when you got a new prospective client and they've agreed to meet you the first time, how do you not mess it up and more importantly, how do you make it an incredible experience, one that's good for you, good for the client and then sets the stage for a really great relationship. There's a lot of, I think, mistakes people make. There's some really, really practical frameworks. We'll share some from both our own lives and some friends we have in the business. It'll be a lot of fun. We also get into state of the industry and some really interesting things that are happening in terms of just trends that are really starting to gain some serious momentum. It's a lot of fun. We might even sprinkle in a little talk about Ai. Why not? It's the season. Thanks for joining us on The Advisor Journey. Let's get going.
Speaker: Welcome to The Advisor Journey, a podcast by Altruist, dedicated to giving advisors the edge they need with proven RIA growth strategies. Each week, Dasarte Yarnway and I will have hard-hitting conversations about the topics that matter most to the modern RIA, how to scale, how to maximize efficiency, and how to effectively reach your goals. It's real advice from people who've really done it and we're so glad you're here.
Dasarte: All right, Jason, how're you doing?
Jason: I'm doing pretty good. It's been a pretty good start to the year. How about you?
Dasarte: I'm doing really well. Daughter turns one. Good milestone. I have to get you for tips for the next six to 12 months. I was thinking about something on my way to LA last night. I was thinking to myself, Jason and I have really made a lot of content. I was just thinking about all the trips, like going to Philly, the old Altruist office. Now we're in the new building, of course. All of these different milestones, Steve Lockshin that I interviewed over at Vanilla. We've really produced a lot of content. If you're listening to the podcast today, there's a wealth of knowledge on The Human Advisor, The Advisor Journey, early days grow. It's still all on YouTube. Go check that stuff out because there are gems on these episodes. Jason, we've done a lot and I appreciate –
Jason: I agree [02:49].
Dasarte: – just how much virtual high five, how much we've been able to create. Now, if you're listening to this podcast today, we're going to talk about that first meeting. It's so important for advisors to, one, make a good impression on their clients, but two, really have solid points of what they seek to get out of the meeting. Some advisors use scripts, some advisors have checklists, but ultimately, we just want to go down and list some of the things that you should look after or look to get out of your clients or prospective clients when you meet with them. Jason, I know that you had a process that was crazy. I have my questions that I asked, but I guess I'll start here. In the first meeting, one of the things that I want to do is just set the expectation. I think that's very important because many times people may have not have worked with advisors or they just don't know what to expect if they're switching from one advisor to another. My first thing is I want to set the expectation for the client and telling them that, hey, this is how we work, this is how we charge again, this is what you can expect from me and this is what we can expect from you.
Before clients even get to that first meeting, I send something called our client engagement standards. I got this from Taylor Schulte, actually. He doesn't go meetings out of the office, so the latter part of the week, he's not wearing a suit and tie. He's going to be really relaxed and he wants to make sure that his retired clients were comfortable with that. We send that same document, but reiterating those things in the first meeting is where I start. If you're an advisor, I think it's important to remind your clients what they signed up for, what they should expect from you and what you should expect from them. Like any relationship, communication is key and just setting it up and taking those expectations are important. What do you think, Jason?
Jason: It's funny, going even before a first meeting, I remember going back to marketing. It actually was like the very first steps in marketing. Like, okay, let's say you put a headline in front of somebody, what's the point of the headline? l would be like I don't know what's the headline. They go, the point of the headline is to get them to then read the body or the bullet points or something, the next thing in the copy. Then they go, and what's the point of the primary body or the bullet points in your offer? I'm like, I don't know. Tell me more. They're like, it's to get them to read your offer, your CTA. The point of CTA, of course, is to get them to engage in whatever that next step is. Presumably it's a meeting.
I think the first meeting is much like that. You have that first meeting and you should go into it going, well, what am I trying to get out of it? I think most people, there should be basically two things that you should be trying to figure out. They should be, determine if you're a good fit to work together beyond a first meeting, like if you haven't already done prequalification, so to speak. That should be the most important, like this needs to be done in that first meeting. Then I think is to be compelling enough to get the client to want to hire you, again, assuming you want them to hire you and then book a second meeting. I think where people tend to make a lot of mistakes is they try to make the more than that. They try to almost close the deal, sign paperwork, whatever. They're trying to do 10 things in the first meeting when it's really – it's just much, again, like the headline gets you to read the body, the body gets you to hit the CTA, CTA gets you to book the meeting. I think almost like keeping it really simple and having, again, a total framework for is this the right person for me and am I the right person for them? If so, what do we have to make sure we're talking about to ensure that we move on to step two?
Dasarte: Yeah, I love that. It's funny because I just came from a marketing conference in Las Vegas, and Taylor Schulte actually was on stage talking about how he doesn't even do the introductory meetings anymore. His practice has grown to a place where he has the questions, the qualification questions for his assistants to ask people if they're going to be a right fit. After that, the next meet is to see if he likes the client. I think it's important to almost evaluate your personnel as well to see if they can assist you with prequalification and then getting objectives written down so you can really pull the information necessary that you want to get out of that.
We talked about scripts right before we turned on the microphone. I'm not a fan of scripts. I don't know how you feel about it, but I don't like regurgitating the exact same thing every meeting because I think there's a human on the other side of the table. Talk to me about your perspective on that.
Jason: Yeah, so it's funny we talk about scripts. Today, we're in Altruist headquarters and we're doing The Advisor Journey. We also have a film crew here today, and we're doing some welcome videos, some for advisors and some to help with the end client. I'll say scripts have their place for sure. Don't try to wing certain things that you should have well prompted out. I totally agree, in a meeting that's a two-dimensional, two-way conversation. If you're recording something for mass distribution, a script makes tons of sense to me, because you want to get it perfect so it can be replayed millions of times. With a client, you're interacting with another human and a lot of people aren't going to answer the same question the way that you might expect them to and you have to be able to pivot.
I do think that in lieu maybe of a defined word for word script, like you should for sure have a list of what exactly are you trying to learn or accomplish from that meeting. I've talked with you fair bit about it, but I only had three things when I was doing first meetings with clients, and it's funny, these same three things, I use them for everything. Meaning if I'm talking to a financial advisor and I want to see if they're a good fit for Altruist, I ask them these questions. If I'm interviewing employees and I want to get a better idea of who they are and if they might be a good fit to work for me. My three questions were always really simple. The first one was, tell me about something you've done that's worked really, really well for you. In the context of a client, it might be, tell me about some of the financial decisions that you've made that have allowed you to become successful that you feel really good about, you're proud of, etc. Interestingly, there's a psychological reason I did that. It was because most people want to tell you about their wins. It's like if you ever had a friend go to Vegas and they come back and they'll – the story always starts like this; I was up $1,400 and things were going great and then dah, dah, dah, and then cut to the punchline. It's like, and I –
Dasarte: I lost it all. It's all gone.
Jason: They always start with how much they were up at one point before they get to the point of losing. I think people are similar with their money. In order to get them to admit that they've maybe not done everything right, give them a chance to really share what they've done well. My second question then would be the follow-up. Hey, now that I've gotten them to open up and talk about their wins, I say, hey, is there anything you've done that hasn't worked out? Maybe you've lost money, you regret making that decision, is there anything like that that's happened? Again, if you open with asking people about their money mistakes, they're going to be on edge a bit. Again, that first question is really key to ask before asking about the insecurities.
Then finally the third thing, which gets into their psyche of like, well, what are they interested in right now? My third question would always be, tell me about something you've been thinking about doing. Maybe you just haven't pulled the trigger on. It could be any number of things like buying investment real estate or buying a specific investment product, doing a backdoor Roth, some advanced tax planning, anything. Is there anything you've read about, you've thought about, just haven't done? It's really interesting. Those answers can be all over the map depending on who you're talking to. That was always my perspective. Oddly, once people would give me those answers, it was very easy for me to close a first meeting by – once I had that rapport and heard how they went through and had some dialogue, it was very easy for me to say, hey, listen, so based on what you've shared, I work with a lot of people who are successful like you are, they've done a lot of the same things that you have, so maybe they're self-made, they're entrepreneur, you're totally not alone in those insecurities, the things that you maybe – you may say, trust me, we've all been there, done that. Also, what you're talking about, some of the things you've been kicking around, thinking about. My belief is that you should never do anything without really understanding it, vetting it, testing it in advance.
What I would propose is that what you really need is a good comprehensive financial plan. For me, a first meeting was before they had committed, if you will, to a plan. That's how I ran mine. I think the key in how I share it isn't to say people should do that exact same thing, but it's to find their thing because I know you work with entrepreneurs, you're building a business that's heavy geologically focused, like on Sacramento. You're going to have certain things that are probably going to be – you're going to find they're super relevant to your ideal customer. I'm sure your process will be a little bit different. I don't know if you want to share just a few notes from your own practice, like things that have been really working well, maybe some things that haven't worked so well and maybe some things you thought about doing differently, Dasarte. Mine are just totally mine.
Dasarte: My process is similar. I'm not looking to necessarily close on the first meeting, but I'm looking to get to know the person on the other side of the table better than they know themselves. Because a lot of the time I think that they're saying things but they don't know what they're saying or what they need at the end. I ask questions. I'm trying to look for data on how they found our firm, so how did you find us? Did you work with a financial planner before? What was that experience like? My biggest question was if there were one or two things that an advisor can do to add value to your financial life, what would those one to two things be? Then I really start to see why they chose to come to me. Like my old guy just didn't understand my business and how we make money, I didn't feel like I was helped, they didn't have the time for me. I think that's when I really get to unpeel the onion and ask those follow up questions that are important and that can prove our value to that client.
I think there's a couple must dos in the first meeting. You should listen twice as much as you talk. That's why we have two ears and one mouth. I think that advisors get in front of clients and they want to just talk a lot, like show that they are the superhero and they can help this client when that is not the case. I spend 90% of the time listening to what the clients have to say, listening to their concerns. I find that a lot of those times, especially this year, my close rate has been super high because I'm giving them the space to talk and position them as the hero in their own story. You should listen twice as much as you talk, step number one.
Number two, I think Jason, you hit the nail on the head, you have to have a checklist. There's certain things that I want to know from my own data, like how did you find me? Was it the podcast? Was it some video that you saw online? Did I write something? Because I want to do more of that stuff. Even if you don't become a client, I need to know how you found your own way wealth in the first place. I want to ask that question. I also want to ask about previous advisor if they've worked with one, because I think that if they're saying like, hey, my advisor couldn't beat the S&P for two straight years, probably not a person that I want to work with. I need that data to say, is this a good fit? Am I going to dread going into meetings with you every time I see your name on the schedule? That's not the type of person that I want to work with. Two, I want to know how I can add value. I think that the biggest impact that I've had is being very detail oriented. I play college football and if a tackle misses a block going up to the middle linebacker, I'm going to get crushed. You have to know what you're doing so we can both be successful. Hearing those details come from clients, that last question again, what are one or two things that I can do to provide impact to your life? When I'm doing those things, if there's ever a bump in the road, I can come back and say, I should make sure that you understand your taxes fully, you have your effective tax rate, like different things that can help you understand your finances.
I feel like that's what we've been doing. I want to make sure that I'm listening intentionally to make sure that I'm impacting their financial life in the way that they expect it to be impacted. In my process, especially in that introductory call, it's all about the client. It's not about me. We have another call, our financial organization call. We have Zapier now that automates 60% of what we do. They're uploading all their documents, we're going through it, and then we're getting into the nitty gritty of their financial lives. Like a doctor, I always say that I can't prescribe without first diagnosing that data is important, but I don't think that first meeting for me is the time to get that data. A couple must dos; let the client talk, have a checklist, set those expectations, which I feel like is extremely important. I think the new thing that I want to add to that is really giving an estimate on time and how we work. I think that's one thing that I forgot in my client engagement standards document that I need to probably update, especially lately, the idea that we're just going to handhold them throughout the whole thing. That's not really how I want to work.
Right now in my firm and for a lot of the advisors that are listening to the podcast, you probably don't have all the time to go back and forth. While I feel on time, financial advice is important, I think there should be an expectation on when you'll respond, when you'll meet, what the person can expect. That's just a conversation, direct conversation on time. I think if you're doing those four things, again, having that checklist. Talking, just don't talk that much, bro. Let the client talk. Let them get out the reasons that they're sitting in front of you today. Make sure that you collect as much data that's going to be helpful for your marketing and prospecting activities and set the expectation on time and the way you work. I think that is a successful first meeting.
Jason: Yeah, that's super well said. Yeah. I think it's funny because I remember, again, I can't remember who it was. I think it might've been a guy named Mike Walters, who early in my career was a good mentor, but he made this comment that when something breaks down, a lot of times we think it was the most recent action that caused the breakdown. He's like, but usually whatever sort of a snowball of like, things that had started actually prior. This is like that prep you're talking about like, hey, I send something out in advance. The first meeting is all about listening. In other words, when something doesn't go right two months into an engagement, it's not like that you did something wrong two months after the client started. It was actually probably all that prep work, that early work that was done and again, snowballing into a future issue.
I think again, these early meetings, the prep that goes into before them, your disclosure about, hey, this is the time. When I had finished my first meetings, really the only talking I did because I asked these questions, took a ton of notes, and then at the end I would give a five-minute pitch, if you will, which was that whole like, hey, I think really needs a plan, by the way, here's how planning works, here's how it should work anyway. I would walk through, here's the cost, here's the time, dah, dah, dah. I didn't ask anyone to ever make a commitment. In fact, I would tell them, hey, listen, you really shouldn't make a commitment here, but I'll give you some information that you can use, recap what we talked about. Then, if this is something that makes sense and sounds good, here's how we actually start the process. Then it's like, then you get into the actual planning process and that's when you're asking for their tax returns and all their statements and these things. Again, if you go too fast, it's pretty easy to get people maybe to agree but somewhat reluctantly. Then they start like actually feeling anxiety, which can then result in something unpleasant happening, whatever, two weeks, four weeks, a couple months later. Meaning where the client just is like, you know what? This is all going too fast, I don't feel comfortable, it's too much for me. Then they bail out. I think it's easy as an advisor to be so eager to engage with a new client and get things going, all that pre-work, and giving them space time, letting them talk. I mean, it's huge. So super well thought out process.
Dasarte: I think that a resounding yes is better than a reluctant okay.
Jason: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah.
Dasarte: I don't want reluctant okays.
Jason: It's like when you ask someone to marry you and if they're like, let me get back to you, well – yeah.
Dasarte: Should I start packing my stuff tonight?
Jason: That means no.
Dasarte: Yeah. I don't want that. I think that advisors need to know. As you were talking, I was thinking about just an old proverb that my mom and my dad used to tell me from Liberia. They would say a fruit in hand is better than two in a tree. I think that advisors going to meetings like, I have this person in front of me, I'm going to close today, like always be closing, and that is the complete wrong way to do it.
Jason: Yeah, it's like Tommy Boy with his sale, which you have to be at least my age to know what I'm talking about. Chris Farley, if you haven't seen the movie.
Dasarte: I get the reference.
Jason: It's a really funny one. He has his little sale and then he messes it up. Yeah, I think we've got to have a lot less fear of that. It's funny too about clients and these meeting processes and using them as a way to grow your business is that it's totally okay, it's always better to learn that early than to two or three years later end up having someone who you really don't enjoy working with, they're extremely high maintenance, they're not a good fit, they're maybe prone to complain, even do a formal complaint for no good reason. I think getting it's easy in the early days of all of our businesses to just feel like every single person that you meet should become a client and you want them to become a client. The reality is that there's probably at least some percentage, I don't know if it's 10% or some of people who may be interested in hiring you, but you really shouldn't. I think the sooner you can avoid those mistakes, the better.
Dasarte: I agree 100%. It's funny because I was at an entrepreneur event in Sacramento that I was speaking at, and it was a bank that was there and they recently appeared. The founder of the bank came, asked a question as I was speaking on the panel, and he was like, so how would you make a decision to choose a financial advisor or some financial professional to help you with your finances? I didn't really have a good answer at the time, and I was like, you date them. That's what I said. He loved the answer. Gave me his card. We got lunch in a couple weeks. I was like, you date them and he was –
Jason: You've been dating them for a few weeks from then. It's going well.
Dasarte: Right, yeah, pretty much. Then he was like, I did that same thing with the investment bank. We went to each other's kids, graduations and birthday parties, all the golf tournaments, all the lunch. We dated them for like seven, eight years before we chose them to take our company public. I think that as an advisor, you have to know that they're dating you and you should also date them to figure out if this is a good fit for you and your business and where you want it to go. That's my most recent story about that first meeting, that first engagement. You don't want to say yes on the first date, you want to make sure that you're getting to know this client, getting to know and figuring out if you are the person to serve them. If it's a no, that's okay.
Last thing, I want to make sure that – I guess the fifth thing that I would add on that checklist is make room to answer some questions. I strongly believe when a prospective client comes in, I'm trying to stop saying prospect, but when a prospective client comes in, they should walk away with something like, hey, I had these concerns, he answered my questions, he gave me the space to talk. If you answer one or two questions during the meeting or at the end of the meeting, I think someone walks away with value. If they don't work with you perhaps, just perhaps they send somebody to your podcast or your blog or your website, like I had a pleasant experience with him, I wasn't ready, but I think he may be a good fit for you, he or she may be a good fit for you. That fifth thing, make sure that you leave space to answer questions, because when they leave, they just don't want your brochure, they want to feel like you're competent enough to do something for them. That's the last thing. I'm not sure if you have anything else, Jason.
Jason: Yeah, listen, my only thing I would say, and this is true I think with almost all things in life, is that some people will follow up. You finish that meeting. Yeah, totally I think you're a hundred percent spot on. It's also the same thing in work. Like if you are in a meeting and the meeting's done, look, it's a good idea for somebody – be that somebody that puts together the thoughtful summary, tells people the next steps so that nothing's left hanging. I think that attention to detail means a lot. Now there's so many AI tools that just make it really, really easy to send a nice, simple summary so that clients know exactly what you spoke about and then what the next steps are so that they're not wondering what they need to do next. Yeah, I think that's always sort of you finish the meeting and then you follow up. It's pretty key.
Dasarte: I learned that lesson this past weekend or this past week. I was in Sacramento having lunch with an older advisor. 70 years old, Jason. Has nine kids. I'm like, bro, how do you do it? His kids are super like the age.
Jason: You saw, I think it was De Niro just had a baby at 79 or something like that.
Dasarte: Yeah, crazy, like man! Anyway, we'll talk about that on another episode, but nine kids and he reached out to me. He's like, hey, I want you to be the successor at my firm. Can we meet? We met in Fuso, went to a nice restaurant. We bonded over jazz. Actually, it's a new artist named Samara Joy. If you have a chance to listen to her great old sound, and he said, I would be honored if you could work with my clients. Here's my latest jazz cuts that I like to talk about. Like so much attention to detail, no tech, no Apple watch, just like up here, sharp as attack. Some of those old ways of doing things carry a lot of value. I just wanted to say, I agree with you 100%, and shout out to that advisor for just finding me. It was such a great lunch regardless of anything that comes with it. I had a great time.
Let's transition to rapid fire Q&A. Number one, I think you have a good book that you've been reading, but what's the most interesting thing that you've read this week, Jason?
Jason: Yes, so I just finished it, but it's Make Something Wonderful. I think it's free on Apple Books. It's a collection of all of the notes and even some email summaries, speech excerpts, all sorts of memoirs, if you will, from Steve Jobs. It's just an interesting thing. I think as society, sadly, we forget about people. Steve Jobs gives one of those innovative, amazing, leaders I think of the last 100 years. It just was really cool to go back and read things he'd written or again, read transcripts of his interviews from the 90s and 2000s. I mean, what an absolutely unbelievable, thoughtful, and also incredible foresight! I mean, there's stuff you read about that he was speaking about in the 80s and 90s that's playing out right now, 40 years later. It's bonkers. Super quick, easy read. It's just again, I believe free download that Apple's promoting to get you to use their books product, but I would highly recommend it if you haven't read it.
Dasarte: What would you say is the biggest takeaway that you read in that book?
Jason: Look, as a CEO, one of the things I thought was really fantastic was just his – so he had this extraordinary attention to detail and extremely high expectations on the customer experience and he was relentless. It didn't matter how successful Apple became, it didn't matter how many accolades Pixar received. He just didn't have an off switch. He had this incredible, again, attention to detail, loved creating these just incredible, beautiful experiences, and just a great reminder to think, hey, if we're going to do some work – I liken it to working out in the gym. If you're going to commit to being there for an hour, get as much out of that hour as you possibly can. I think when you look at his life, which was tragic, I mean talk about an unbelievable amount of production and I think it's because the guy just didn't waste time. He was like, if he was in that gym an hour, it was going to be an intense hour and nothing was wasted. Yeah, pretty inspiring.
Dasarte: I feel like anybody can take something from that founder, right?
Jason: Totally.
Dasarte: I mean, his story resonates throughout Northern California where I am. You can see the fingerprints all around. It's amazing.
Jason: I bet. Yeah, it's quite remarkable. How about you? What book have read?
Dasarte: I'm reading a book now. It's called The Good Life. The subtitle is Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. I just pulled it up, but basically the book is about a select group of Harvard students that they tracked over the last six or so decades, and they interviewed them every year whether that's in person or sending them a survey. They asked them things about like what makes you happy? Through the findings, I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but they found one of the components of living a happy life is relationships. They said that being lonely for older, the older portion of the sample group has a bigger mortality rate than cancer and smoking and then all these other things. It's like we are humans, we're wired to be tribal and we're wired to have fruitful, impactful relationships.
I mean, you and I, we've talked about this before, but I've had people pass away early in my family. Longevity is, I hope part of my financial plan and everything that I'm planning for, but relationships have something to do with that. If you can, check out that study. It's a phenomenal book. There's so many lessons in it about life. I think when you're an advisor, you're on the run, you're trying to build your business, you forget about some of the most that are free that will make for a fruitful life. The Good Life, look it up, it's a good book.
Jason: Love it. No, it sounds fantastic. All right, so let's shift gears here and we got 30 seconds for you to answer this, but what's your 30-second take on the current state of the financial services industry?
Dasarte: Everybody's trying to figure it out. We have a long way to go, but luckily, we're in a place that we have the right leaders. I think you, Jason, some of the folks that are associated with Altruist that are really trying to push for change in the industry. That's my quick and dirty 30-second take. I expect more diversity and inclusion. I expect more technological resources to help advisors do their job better and I expect it to be very, very – I don't want to say easy, but I expect advisors will have all that they need to grow their businesses.
Jason: Well said. I love the optimistic view. Again, much like you, I feel like we're in this actually really cool transitionary era in wealth management where it's not about age, I don't make about that, but, man, there's so many really good young planners. Then there's older people like myself or even my contemporaries that we're inspired by that, and so we're like, we want in on this change too, so people launching businesses, finding high amounts of focus on underserved clients, finding new ways of providing advice and planning. I know it's a pretty, pretty fun time. I do think there's one hot take I'll throw in there, which I'm just – I spent last week. I was at a FinTech conference in San Francisco and –
Dasarte: You didn't hit me up.
Jason: Listen, I wish I could have. It was like wake up and then before you know, it's 10:30 and you're exhausted and you go to bed, but I was a speaker as well, which was fun. What was cool about it was Sam Altman was there from OpenAI. There was a number of really high-profile folks there. Reid Hoffman did a session on AI. AI is like it's everywhere now. It's like annoyingly everywhere right now. This is like a seminal moment that I think hopefully a lot of us remember in our lives, and I think so much will change in the next decade and we'll look at – I was super non, not to be negative here, but I never really bought into digital assets, especially NFTs. I was like this ridiculous and stupid. I think the currencies have some interesting applications and I can totally get behind some of that. Again, it was never going to be as big as I thought as a lot of people made it up to be.
Dasarte: It wasn't as compelling.
Jason: This reminds me of the internet, like when I first stumbled on the internet, which totally changed my life in the 90s, like oh my gosh! What's possible? I mean, the things that people will be able to do are going to be so remarkable over the next 10 years. I just hope that advisors are taking this moment not getting distracted, but looking at it and going, hey, what are ways that I can be better and serve more people, like leveraging these new innovations that are coming out. I think there's going to be a lot of really cool discovery. It would be a fun time.
Dasarte: It's funny you say that because you talk about the young group of advisors that are just getting better and just crushing it. I was talking to another advisor like, look man, we got to keep the pace. There's so many new innovations that you just got to stay abreast with to make sure that you are – but Jason, again, love talking to you about this. Advisors, if you're listening to the podcast, we appreciate you for tuning in week in and week out. We're going to continue to deliver The Advisor Journey to you with fruitful information, impactful information that can help you change or grow your business. With that being said, make sure that you visit altruist.com/podcasts. We want to hear from you. I've been getting a lot of DMs, a lot of texts, a lot of tweets about the platform, about the podcast, about how it's driving you to make a move to work with Altruist. If that's you or if that's on your mind, don't hesitate. Our DMs are open. We want to hear from you. We want your feedback and we want to know what you want to hear on this podcast. Please, Jason, I think you would agree, hit us up. We want to hear from you. This whole thing is for you. I just want to make sure that you know that. Until next week, Jason and Dasarte signing off. See you soon.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to The Advisor Journey by Altruist. Don't forget to like or review and subscribe for future episodes. Each advisor's journey is different and your results may vary. While we hope you find this information helpful, success cannot be guaranteed. Also, Altruist and its affiliates do not provide tax or legal advice.