10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor – Episode #467

There’s a lot of know-how—debt, taxes, legal, estate, insurance, retirement planning, and more—that goes into helping a dentist make smart financial decisions. Asking the right questions can make finding a good advisor easier. On this Dentist Money Show, Ryan and Matt explain why, for your advisor to have the biggest impact, they need to know the intricacies of being a dentist.

 

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show, brought to you by Dentist Advisors, a no commission fiduciary, comprehensive financial advisor only for dentists all over the country for 16 years. Check us out at dentistadvisors.com.

Ryan Isaac:
Today on the show, Matt and I are telling a story about ignoring very obvious red flags, being sold things in your moment of most needed help and advice, and 10 questions to ask someone before you hire them as your financial advisor. Many thanks to Matt as always, and thanks to all of you for being here. If you have questions for us, you can always get us on the phone, book a free consultation at dentistadvisors.com. Thank you for being here. Enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consultant an advisor or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Happy New Year.

Matt Mulcock:
Yay Happy… Wait, no, that’s…

Ryan Isaac:
This might come out in the new year.

Matt Mulcock:
It probably will, but you’re wearing a Santa hat.

Ryan Isaac:
Which is Okay. Let’s tell for the listeners at home. I’m wearing a Santa hat.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s so out of place.

Ryan Isaac:
A little bit of a flex here. It’s hot today and so I might be sweating profusely.

Matt Mulcock:
Flexing on everyone that doesn’t live in Southern California.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s December 15th and it’s legitimately pretty dang warm.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s actually been pretty warm here too.

Ryan Isaac:
Has it? Shout out to you, [0:01:34.1] ____.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, it’s relative.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s 45. Like 45.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s 43 today and sunny. It’s very nice.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, the sun’s out, so it’s okay.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s all relative.

Ryan Isaac:
The guns are out.

Matt Mulcock:
No, they’re not.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, I don’t know when this episode’s actually gonna come out, but I think the whole theme of today is like how… I’d love to reflect back on this year a little bit and the kind of things people went through and the questions we got asked. But the theme would be like 2024 how do we help people start off on the right foot making smart financial decisions and what are some things that we’ve learned about that? What are some resources we can give? We have like an e-guide in our website and some podcasts you can go listen to in addition to this one. But I have a story to tell first as usual.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, you do.

Ryan Isaac:
Per usual.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, you do.

Ryan Isaac:
Here my problem is actually I have too many stories and not enough podcasts to tell them on. [laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. You used to do a daily podcasts.

Ryan Isaac:
I need more podcasts… I’m not sure which side the Santa hat, like hangy floppy ball is supposed to hang on. I Kinda like that. Okay. [laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
That looks good.

Ryan Isaac:
Is that side good?

Matt Mulcock:
Try the other side real quick.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, let’s switch to the right. I like the other one better.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, other way is better.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like emo Santa, like kind of curls over my eye.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. It’s like the early Justin… Early days Pre-teen Justin Bieber Santa.

Ryan Isaac:
2003 Santa. Okay, so I was texting you this this week. I had luckily in the month of the holidays I had two of my cars break down and die.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, they’re dead?

Ryan Isaac:
And have to go to a dealership.

Matt Mulcock:
They’re gone?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. One was just puking oil all over my driveway.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, gosh.

Ryan Isaac:
And the other one actually mine shut down on the freeway. And that’s the story I’m gonna tell today. [chuckle] But if anyone wants to ask me anything about that, send me a message.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean I want to ask about it ’cause all…

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s talk about having two cars break in December.

Matt Mulcock:
All I got was you texted me, we had a meeting scheduled and you were like, Hey, man. I can’t go to the meeting. My car broke down.

Ryan Isaac:
Twice.

Matt Mulcock:
That happened twice.

Ryan Isaac:
Twice. Yeah. And look, I don’t drive brand new cars, they’re the nicest cars in the world, but one of them’s two years old and the other one’s like five years old. And they have no models…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Your Maserati, how old’s your Maserati? [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
The Maserati. The Moz? That’s what I call it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. The G-Wagon is a couple of years old. But the Maserati’s what?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, the G-Wagon is actually a Volkswagen Golf and it’s 14 years old and I call it a G-Wagon.

Matt Mulcock:
The G-Wagon.

Ryan Isaac:
‘Cause it has a G on it.

Matt Mulcock:
: Yeah. Exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh the O, N that fell off. But it’s just the G is still there.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s the real G-Wagon right there.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Anyway, my car. So here’s two principles I learned and I wanted to talk about today. So here’s what happened, and anyone listening who knows anything at all about cars, which I do not know anything, I was always the guy holding the lights.

Matt Mulcock:
And I know even less.

Ryan Isaac:
You know less.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
I was the guy holding a light under the hood and I didn’t even usually do that well. They’d be like, The lights, move it over here. I’d get yelled at for that.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. You’re the light holder.

Ryan Isaac:
0:04:25.1 RI: I was like…

Matt Mulcock:
We’re light holders.

Ryan Isaac:
Were you a light holder?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And I’d still get in trouble.

Matt Mulcock:
I didn’t even do that very well. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I didn’t do that well. So I got bored. It’s like a boring job. Anyway what I’m about to say is probably gonna… Someone’s gonna be like, dude, that’s such a red flag. You should have been on this so much sooner. My car, let’s say every four months or so, I’m having to refill the coolant in the car.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s a red flag.

Ryan Isaac:
Now, I’ve never put coolant in a car in my entire life because it’s never ran low and it’s probably topped off when I do oil changes, which I’ve always been good about. But in my car for like the last year and a half, it’s probably every four, maybe five months, it’s like low coolant and I gotta put in there. Now my car’s a little different. It’s a type of car I’ve never had before. Manufacturer I’ve never had before. So I’m like, ah, maybe this is how it runs. Maybe this is just how it goes in this type of car.

Matt Mulcock:
Maybe it just guzzles coolant. [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
Maybe it’s just always hot.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s hot and it needs a lot of hydration.

Ryan Isaac:
I drive fast and… I’m a little bit.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re like…

Ryan Isaac:
More furious than I am fast mostly ’cause of my temper.

Matt Mulcock:
Paul Walker. RIP.

Ryan Isaac:
RIP. So red flag number one, I’m putting coolant in a car, which I’ve never had to do before and I’m doing it fairly often, which whatever. Usually I see the thing, I put in some coolant and we’re good. It’s like the light goes off and I drive around and everything’s good. So last week I’m about to drive down south to meet some friends to go surfing. Beautiful day. I’m really excited. Looking forward to this day.

Matt Mulcock:
That seems weird.

Ryan Isaac:
Par for the course.

Matt Mulcock:
It seems weird that you’d be surfing. [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
And I see the light the night before need coolant. I’m like, again. All right, fine. The next morning, pull it out in the garage.

Matt Mulcock:
The car is so thirsty.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s thirsty, dude. And so I put the coolant in, turn on the car, and I start driving. Now where I’m going is a good 40 minute drive. If anyone’s familiar, it’s between Orange and San Diego County across Camp Pendleton. So it’s like the stretch of road for 30 minutes where there’s nothing.

Matt Mulcock:
I know it well.

Ryan Isaac:
And you can’t pull over anywhere. There’s no facilities or anything. No gas stations. So I start driving immediately and the light’s not going off, like usual when I put in the coolant. And At first I’m like, Weird. Maybe it just needs some miles to reset. ‘Cause you know, that happens sometimes.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’m like…

Matt Mulcock:
Or maybe your car is just extra thirsty that day.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s thirsty. It was a hot day.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’m blatantly ignoring this message. And it seems like there was three stages. This stage was, it’s low, it needs cooling. So I just keep driving of course, because giant red flag, like ignoring red flags. I’m good at that, honestly.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I ignore it and I keep driving.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m only laughing ’cause this is exactly what I would do, but I guess weird to keep going.

Ryan Isaac:
0:07:09.8 RI: Okay. I figure that my car just hasn’t figured it out yet.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
That’s my conclusion.

Matt Mulcock:
Of the two things here of me versus the car not figuring it out. It’s likely that it’s the car.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s the car.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s gotta be the car.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like precision German engineering. It’s so smart. And It’s all computer.

Matt Mulcock:
Maybe it’s the car that hasn’t figured it out.

Ryan Isaac:
0:07:29.7 RI: It hasn’t clicked yet.

Matt Mulcock:
It needs to take some time.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s gotta spin a few more motherboards or something. I don’t even know. [laughter] So I’m just like, Yeah, the car hasn’t figured it out yet. And I’m 10, 15 minutes in now I’m in the middle of that freeway.

Matt Mulcock:
This is how you approach life. You just haven’t figured it out yet.

Ryan Isaac:
You kinda just go. Let’s just yeah. Let’s just see what happens. And I’m getting a little sweaty. And then, so that’s stage one is it’s low of please fill.

Matt Mulcock:
From nerves or from the heat?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Nerves. [chuckle]

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, okay.

Ryan Isaac:
Stage two, it says temperature is rising. Please drive moderately until temperature lowers. And now I’m like, Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Slow down, Dom.

Ryan Isaac:
Now I’ve never seen that Dom Toretto.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Is that… It’s Toretto, right?

Matt Mulcock:
It’s more accurate for you. Just ’cause of the baldness.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. The bald, I’m like, Okay, I’ll ride this a little less hard and I’ll slow down a little bit. So now I’m in the right lane going like 65 instead of my usual 80. And now it’s like, it’s getting hot. But the crazy thing is that, this is why I thought the car was wrong is the temperature gauge wasn’t going up. It was like low still. I’m like this, it’s wrong. It doesn’t know what it’s doing. Maybe the…

Matt Mulcock:
Car just keep figuring it out. I’m just gonna keep driving.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. The sensor’s off.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Like, it doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep.

Ryan Isaac:
Stage three I’ve found, which I’ve never been to stage three before. Stage three is a bright red triangle that says, Pull over immediately, engine overheated and it seizes. It doesn’t move. The gas pedal doesn’t gas. The brakes still break, which made me feel better.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s good. I’m glad they figured that part out.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’m a good like five minute, I’m almost into… If anyone knows, into Oceanside. So now I’m like almost… I’m past the base almost to some gas stations, but it’s like the red triangle. The gas won’t make the car go. [chuckle] A miracle, man. Holiday miracle, like Hallmark movie Miracle.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I coasted off the first Oceanside off ramp into the first gas station, and then I was like, Okay, clearly the car’s right.

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
At this point you’ve realized.

Ryan Isaac:
It was onto something.

Matt Mulcock:
The car knew what was going on. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
It was onto something. And So…

Matt Mulcock:
The idiot here was not the car.

Ryan Isaac:
It turns out. Yeah. It turns out. And so now I’m like…

Matt Mulcock:
Sorry I mean the fool, the fool based on the…

Ryan Isaac:
The fool here. Which… Yeah. So now I’m like, all right, clearly there’s something wrong. I have to cancel my plans. I’m like, Hey buddies, I’m not gonna meet you. And I look up where the closest dealership was. Five miles away. I’m like five miles. No problem. It took me about two hours to go that five miles on side streets because I would pull over, let it cool down until I got back to level one warning, which was coolant low, engine’s getting warm. And then between… It would go from…

Matt Mulcock:
You didn’t immediately go to level three.

Ryan Isaac:
In like two minutes.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I was hobbling down the highway. Luckily it’s a beautiful highway. It was in front of the ocean.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
A couple of my stops were at beaches.

[chuckle]

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I would pull over, crank pop the hood and just stand there.

Matt Mulcock:
How many people flipped you off?

Ryan Isaac:
Dude, I was like… I actually ended up turning on the hazards and it was bad. It was bad. Two hours later I limp into the dealership. So I make it there. Great, fine. We get some diagnosis and I’m safe Uber home and I’m fine. Lesson number one that I thought about the whole way home and for like the next three days while I awaited, is this a $150 bill or was this like a $7000 engine blowup mistake?

Matt Mulcock:
So it was part of car problems.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know. They’re like, Oh, we’ll let you know. And I’m like, cool. We’re only two weeks before Christmas and I think I can return my kid’s gifts. We’ll figure this out. It’s fine.

Matt Mulcock:
We’ll let you know if you have to move out of your house.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s exactly…

Matt Mulcock:
To find something else. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So over like three days, that’s all I thought about was how stupid I am that I just sat there and figured that all these very, very clear three stages of warning flags. Not to mention the last 18 months of doing something that didn’t seem normal. It was like clearly not a thing you should be doing.

Matt Mulcock:
Cars should not be this thirsty.

Ryan Isaac:
They should… They’re not that thirsty. Gasoline, Yeah. Fine. Coolant. No. Number one, I just sat there and thought like, I ignored like these very obvious, very clear, blatant notifications in my face that something was wrong. And I shouldn’t have kept pushing in that direction. I should have asked for help. I should have stopped long before then and said to someone who knows more than I do. Hey, here’s what’s going on. I think this is a problem. Can you help me out a little bit?

Matt Mulcock:
You should have googled something about how thirsty your car is.

Ryan Isaac:
But then I…

Matt Mulcock:
Although, that’d actually be an interesting result.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, in the two hours that it took me to drive five miles, I googled so much stuff. [laughter], and I was like, sensors, oil pan, punctures, there’s like radiators going out.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
There was hoses. I’ll save the spoiler alert for what actually happened. It’s actually kind of a cool twist of the story. I’m very happy. Number two, I come back to the dealership after they’ve fixed it and gave me the news and everything and I’m sitting there and no, no, no. This is before I left. This is when I dropped it off. I’m sitting at the desk. Okay. And like I’ve never had a good, happy experience at a dealership before. I don’t know if you ever have but like…

Matt Mulcock:
Barely.

Ryan Isaac:
When you’re sitting at those cubicles and you’re on the other side of the desk and they’re clinking away on their computer and they’re just…

[vocalization]

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Typing, typing and you’re just like, I just feel like I’m gonna get screwed here. And someone’s not telling me the truth. As I’m stressed. I’m like, is this gonna be super expensive? And I just got here, did I blow up my engine. This sucks, you know, I ruined my day. Whatever. The guy starts trying to sell me stuff, Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course.

Ryan Isaac:
Do you know what I mean?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t even have a diagnosis yet. Nobody knows what’s wrong with my car. It just limped into their bay, their service bay, thank goodness. And it’s sitting out there and it’s full of like my surf stuff and surfboards don’t fit into Ubers, by the way. So I had to pay like double for an XL to get home.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And then I’m like, we have meetings. I’m late for my day, I’m canceling appointments, and I’m just sitting here, kind of desperate, really pissed, mad at myself. And this guy starts selling me things. He’s not the technician. He hadn’t looked at my car, he doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know me, he doesn’t know anything about my situation. And he’s selling me… You know when they flip their screen and they’re like, Oh let me just let me just… Well, hold on. Let me just show you a few things. He’s…

Matt Mulcock:
You ever heard of all weather mats. It’s like…

Ryan Isaac:
Dude, he’s selling me packages. [laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
Sir, I live in Southern California. There’s no all weather here. There is one weather here, sir.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s one weather and the sun comes off. It’s fine.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, Exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
So lesson number two, I’m sitting there and I was kind of, honestly, I was nice to the gentleman and he’s just doing his job. He’s probably a good dude in a system that makes him do this stuff, but he’s selling me things that I don’t even know if I need whatsoever. And no one’s even looked at my car or diagnosed the problem yet. And I don’t even know the damage yet, and I’m getting sold stuff. So number two, lesson number one, I’m like, you can’t ignore obvious flags in front of you. And number two, it really sucks when you’re desperate for help and you need some answers and some guidance and just some clarification. And more than anything, you kind of just want some peace of mind around something that’s stressing you out, and someone’s trying to sell you stuff. And I was just so mad. And I got my Uber XL of course, twice as much money and I had to go home with my surfboard. And then, and I’m just thinking the whole time, this is how the financial industry… Here’s the tie in. This is how the financial industry feels to people.

Matt Mulcock:
13 minutes in, here’s the tie in, everyone.

Ryan Isaac:
People go because we’re humans. We do this in our, businesses, our relationships, our health and our fitness and our money decisions. We do this in a lot of ways. We ignore red flags and we just keep on pushing because we think we know better. Or somehow it’s just gonna go away. [laughter] The problem’s just gonna fix itself.

Matt Mulcock:
Do it all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
No big deal. And then when we do get help in this industry, more often than not, and we hear these stories from clients and potential clients all the time, you get pitched something to buy that you don’t know anything about, that you feel pressure. There’s clearly some weird incentive going on for the person pitching you before anyone knows anything about your situation. You’re getting pitched to buy stuff. And I just thought, man, let’s just have a conversation first about how dumb I am with cars, and…

Matt Mulcock:
Let’s focus on that for a while.

Ryan Isaac:
[laughter] Let’s just camp out here for a minute.

Matt Mulcock:
Let’s just camp out here for just a bit. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And talk about how dumb I am with cars.

Matt Mulcock:
Make me feel better. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
[laughter] I wanna just have a quick discussion about, not ignoring financial red flags. We’re at the… We’re recording this the end of 2023. If everyone just looks back on their last 12 months, there might’ve been some red flags in your money situation that were out of your control. Maybe you had… They were business things that happened out of your control. They were market situations out of your control, whatever. Or there might’ve been things that you caused and you ignored and you kept just seeing that red flashing light and you were just like, I’ll just go to bed with anxiety. [laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t wanna face it. I don’t wanna know. And then you…

Matt Mulcock:
You get used to it after a while.

Ryan Isaac:
[chuckle] Yeah. Sleeping with anxiety. Yeah. You get used to it. And then you might’ve even been like, All right, I’m gonna go find some help. And then walked out of a meeting with a packet on permanent life insurance or annuities or some kind of like, tax deductible, solar and wind easement farm.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. [laughter] Wow. Opportunity zone.

Ryan Isaac:
Oil, crypto opportunity zone. And you might’ve just felt like I just needed some simple problems fixed, and now I just got pitched a bunch of stuff and now I feel even worse about when this all began.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So let’s pause there 15 minutes in. And let me just ask if you, what you wanna say about any of that, about red flags clients telling you… Coming to you, maybe you haven’t talked to in a while, or new people, new dentists. New dentist get on our calendar every single day, dentistadvisors.com. You can talk to us too. And they tell us about stuff they’ve been dealing with maybe problems, red flags in their lives. And then sometimes they go get help from places that try to sell them stuff.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’ll just pause there, what are some of your thoughts on that?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. It’s a great story and segue. It’s been really…

Ryan Isaac:
[laughter] It’s a little long.

Matt Mulcock:
No, it really is…

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks for… I’ve just been… I just wanted to vent to somebody who wanted to hear my car story.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s the thing you just? [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
There is a good ending. I’m gonna tell it later.

Matt Mulcock:
I wanna hear the ending.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. So ironically enough, this just happened yesterday, last night on a client call, it started off… Year end meeting. And great client in a great financial position. Makes a lot of money good, solid liquidity. And he starts off with, hey. He’s like, Matt, I wanna ask you something ’cause I think I made a mistake, [laughter] I’m like, Oh, boy. Here we go. And he goes off and starts saying how he got pitched some tax savings strategy.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
He had to pay quite a big chunk of money before he even knew what was really… It’s like for this program. And he’s like, What do you think? Again, a sizable amount of money. I’m not gonna give the details, but a good chunk of money for this, for this tax program. And it kind of hit me. And I think here’s the main difference between what our clients are dealing with or what dentists are getting pitched versus like, even the car thing is, the stuff being sold in our industry is so compelling because we want it to be true.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
We want what being, what is being sold. And these people have it so dialed. They have their pitch so dialed, they know exactly what to tell you, ’cause they know what you wanna hear.

Ryan Isaac:
What are the buttons that we want to hear? Like what are the ones?

Matt Mulcock:
Taxes…

Ryan Isaac:
Tax free.

Matt Mulcock:
Tax free, investing with no risk.

Ryan Isaac:
No risk, no downside.

Matt Mulcock:
Are the big ones. No downside.

Ryan Isaac:
Higher returns than average.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. Higher returns. Financial freedom sooner than you…

Ryan Isaac:
Passive.

Matt Mulcock:
Passive.

Ryan Isaac:
Passive.

Matt Mulcock:
You don’t have to do anything for this.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Whatever this return is or whatever this result that you want.

Ryan Isaac:
Sure.

Matt Mulcock:
And so they prey on this. When you’re saying, the car people, I don’t think anybody likes to be pitched anything at a car dealership.

Ryan Isaac:
No.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s kind of a known thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And I think if you ask somebody outside of the context of like, Do you like getting pitched by a financial advisor? Theoretically most people are gonna be like, Of course not.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
But.

Ryan Isaac:
But.

Matt Mulcock:
But when they’re actually getting pitched something, in the moment, because they’re so locked in on knowing what to sell you and knowing that you want to hear it, like who doesn’t want to…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Which emotions to push on.

Matt Mulcock:
Which emotions.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Who doesn’t want to hear, who doesn’t want to hear, Hey, this thing that you say you want, whether it be like retirement or financial freedom or these returns, you can get that, but you can get it a lot faster by following me or buying this thing. Of course, we all wanna believe that’s true.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And so even this client I had last night, he knew after he left and he’d signed the stuff and given the money, he came to me for a reason. He was like, Man, I think I made a mistake. Now I’ve kind of removed myself. But I was so compelled by their pitch.

Ryan Isaac:
Shoot.

Matt Mulcock:
And because they said, Oh, we’ll save you six figures in your tax bill.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Something like that. Like they gave him an actual figure.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, and who doesn’t want that?

Matt Mulcock:
Who doesn’t want to hear that?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
So that’s my initial thought is like, it’s so much harder even in our industry because the sales pitch is something that we all want to be true.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Like with cars, you don’t want… You don’t care…

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t want any of it anyway. I’m just like… Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
You don’t care about all weather mats or whatever it is.

Ryan Isaac:
No. He is trying to give me new mats and like a discount on filters and like, We’ll change the tires and… And I’m like, None of these things make me excited. They’re probably things I should do.

Matt Mulcock:
Sure.

Ryan Isaac:
But I don’t wanna be pitched anyway.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Let alone your point, which is, yeah, you get pitched from about things in the financial industry and they’re actually life changing things that you want, you really, really want these things.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course.

Ryan Isaac:
No risk, higher returns, passive income, tax deductions, all wrapped into one pretty little product that, why isn’t everyone doing this? I don’t know.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re unique, I got a secret for you.

Matt Mulcock:
And just like Santa Claus, I want it to be true. I totally do…

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know. Yeah. That’s a really creepy concept.

Matt Mulcock:
What?

Ryan Isaac:
If you… That was real.

Matt Mulcock:
As a kid, I loved the idea of…

Ryan Isaac:
As a kid.

Matt Mulcock:
Santa Claus being real.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, yeah, good clarification.

Matt Mulcock:
It was like a really…

Ryan Isaac:
You wanted it to be true.

Matt Mulcock:
Fun, magical thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Like but [0:21:54.9] ____.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, this goes… And this goes back to ignoring flags, because people, when you hear these stories, and I’m curious how your, what your client said when you dug into it, did they have some kinda like intuition around it?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Did they have some feelings during the process and maybe some red flags that they just pushed through and kind of ignored?

Matt Mulcock:
Total. Absolutely. And that’s the whole… This comes back to the two lessons that you’ve highlighted is, he knew, this is why he came to me, the first thing he said to me when we started the meeting off was, I gotta tell you this, because he was like, and his wife was there and we… She was kind of laughing at him, and she was like, I told you.

Ryan Isaac:
Woah! Woah! Yeah. She’s there laughing at him. I like that.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. She’s like kind of smirking, kind of like, I told you not to…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like, I knew it.

Matt Mulcock:
To… I knew this and I told you not to do this.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And so he knew, like he knew, even in the moment, he said to me, he goes, It just doesn’t seem…

Ryan Isaac:
Real.

Matt Mulcock:
It just doesn’t seem legit that all of a sudden they’re gonna knock off my tax bill by a 100k, for what? For nothing? How is this even…

Ryan Isaac:
I’m exchanging nothing for this? Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m exchanging nothing for this. And that’s what I told him.

Ryan Isaac:
And like, This could go… Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I told her, I said, Look, anything like this, what they don’t highlight for you is the tradeoff you’re making. They’re never gonna highlight that. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch and there’s no such thing as a lower tax bill without making some level of tradeoff.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. If the government is involved in any type of investment vehicle or account type, and they’re saying, We’ll let you pay us less taxes. I mean, we’re gonna just give you a discount.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s because there’s something attached to that. If it’s a 401k and they’re like, We’ll let you pay less taxes. If you’re putting money in your 401k, it’s because you can’t have the money back until you’re 60.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
Or you’re penalized.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
If the government is involved in investment vehicles, land, easements, oil and gas, solar, and they’re providing tax incentives on top of those, it’s because those things standing on their own as investments on their own without the tax incentive, no one would probably want it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep.

Ryan Isaac:
And so there’s gotta be some kind of agreement here. And it’s more complex than that, but yeah, you’re right. You’re gonna give something, if you’re… If the government’s gonna agree to not take taxes from you, you are giving something up.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course.

Ryan Isaac:
A hundred percent.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, there’s always a tradeoff of some kind.

Ryan Isaac:
What I like about this story too, I’m glad you shared that, is, your client had someone to call. Your client had someone to reach out to and discuss this with. And maybe that’s kind of like the second half of this discussion where it’s like, Okay, so what can you do then? We’re all doing this. I mean, we’re all looking financial red flags in the face and then being like, It’s probably not real. You know what I mean?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m probably fine.

Ryan Isaac:
And it’s the time of year, it’s for the time of year too, where we’re all probably spending too much money, I was gonna pull up the statistic…

Matt Mulcock:
Guaranteed, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
But I remember seeing around, Black Friday, of course last year when the stock market was down and interest rates were coming up, everyone was like, Recession is in 2023, for sure. And then Black Friday this year, and all the Thanksgiving shopping, Cyber Monday, all the stuff was like record-breaking spending, again.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s been the opposite of a recession.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We’re just spending like crazy. Man, we all do this. We all take our sacred emergency fund and use it for the down payment for the house where it’s too expensive that we weren’t gonna buy and now we are… We all do this stuff. So maybe the second part of this is like, how can people do a little bit better next year? A little bit better. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to solve all of your financial problems.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And it’s kind of funny, I always think about this in this career, we do this all day long for hundreds and hundreds of people. And we still do this stuff in our personal lives.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And spending and taxes and we still ignore red flags, in some shape or way. So, we have a document. Are you gonna… Do you wanna pull that up?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
For anyone who’s watching? Is that possible? How interactive this is?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, my gosh.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m sorry if you’re just a listener right now and you can’t see this, go to YouTube…

Matt Mulcock:
We’ll post it. Yeah. You can watch it.

Ryan Isaac:
Push pause and go to YouTube. Why don’t you scroll through there. So just real quick, if you go to dentistadvisors.com, we could probably put this in the show notes. This is just an article that was probably written by Reese Harper a long time ago.

Matt Mulcock:
Shout out to Reese.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. It still stands, called 10 Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor. I’m curious if we don’t… We’re not going to like read all of these perfectly right now, but just in light of this conversation of like red flags and not ignoring them and how… Okay, so we need to find someone to help us not ignore these things. We need to find someone who, when we do ignore red flags, and we may have made a mistake, can we have a Matt to call? How do I get a Matt in my life so I can call Matt?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, boy.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. You want a Matt. Everyone wants a Matt. And so how do you find these people and how do you like find a Matt in your life who isn’t going to sell you something without even asking you any questions first? Cool. Your car’s dead out front. Yeah. Yeah. No worries. Hey, check out my screen. You should buy this stuff. And like, What? We always say this, if, what if dentists ran their business like that, you come down, you sit in the chair, no one’s seen you yet, no hygiene…

Matt Mulcock:
No, yeah, exactly…

Ryan Isaac:
No x-rays, no pictures, and the dentist just walks up with a clipboard and is like… Or an iPad, like, Hey, you should buy these like five things. You should like get these upgraded. And you’re like, No one’s even looked at my teeth, man. It would be insane.

Matt Mulcock:
You don’t even know why I’m here.

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t even know I’m here, but our industry works like that.

Matt Mulcock:
A hundred percent.

Ryan Isaac:
You call, you call any, like so many of these people and before they know anything about you, no data, whatsoever, there’s like, You need this product, buy it. And you’re just like, what?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, I tell…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s insane.

Matt Mulcock:
This to dentists all the time, if someone… If you’re talking to a “advisor” and they are pitching you a solution and/or product in the first meeting, that is the biggest red flag of all.

Ryan Isaac:
Please don’t do that.

Matt Mulcock:
Please don’t…

Ryan Isaac:
Please just walk… There’s another advisor who won’t. So just leave them for now…

Matt Mulcock:
There’s no possible way that you should be getting pitched anything, a solution, a strategy, a product in the first meeting.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Look, I would even offer the invitation, this happens fairly frequently. From a business perspective, it’s probably not the best use of our time, but I think every advisor on our team is more than happy to do this. How often do people call and be like, I have an advisor. I think it’s fine. Can I talk to you for a few minutes and just get a second pair of eyes on a few things?

Matt Mulcock:
All the time.

Ryan Isaac:
Are you happy to have that conversation? I am.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course.

Ryan Isaac:
I think our team is, all day long. And how often Matt do you get that call and you tell someone, Oh, it sounds like your advisor’s doing a good job. Maybe, maybe ask them these three or four things and improve your communications and talk about a few other subjects that you might be missing. And like, Cool. Thanks.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. It definitely happens. I think more times than not, to be totally honest, we… It’s not like that…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s either way.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s usually like, Hey, I’m calling because this feels weird. They’re pitching me this, that, and the other. And like, Should I be concerned of this? And we’re not in the business of disparaging anyone for any reason at all, we…

Ryan Isaac:
We don’t need to.

Matt Mulcock:
But we will… No, not at all. But we will certainly give an objective opinion and say, Hey, I would be concerned about X, Y, or Z thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
If they’re pitching you this product or whatever. So yeah, that happens all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, so do that. Dear listener, go to dentistadvisors.com. And no pun intended with the word dear, as I wear a Santa hat, that was such a bad stretch…

Matt Mulcock:
That was bad, but I loved it.

Ryan Isaac:
Go to dentistadvisors.com and book a… If you have an advisor and you just like want another pair of eyes, like people do that in the medical industry all the time, people do that to you as dentists, you give a diagnosis and a treatment plan and they’ll go to another dentist and be like, Is this real?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So do that. Call us in and we’ll have a chat. No, no strings attached. Let’s run through a few of these here. Here’s some questions. Again, this is 10 Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor. Let’s go on… We can just go down the list and we’re not going to like dive in each one, but maybe anything that stands out to you that might be helpful to people.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s only 10. I think it’s… Maybe we hit all 10. I don’t know. Number one…

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s go.

Matt Mulcock:
Would you describe the types of clients you work with?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the question. Can you describe for me, who do you work with? Is it just everyone? Is it dentists? But it’s really like anyone in the medical industry and there’s like five dentists in the whole firm. People who work with dentists or specialize or only work with dentists are different things. So yeah. Who do you work with? That’s a good question.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s a reason why this is number one. This is by far, by far our number one value add and differentiator from like what I call a generalist advisor. And this is such a value add to a dentist. Having the centerpiece of your relationships on your team, being dental-specific, someone who can speak dentistry, someone who’s connected in the dental space, someone who can give you, give you specific resources when you need them. Having a dental-specific, having… I’ll say this, having a dental-specific team is so critical. CPA, obviously, advisor, consultants, people that understand the business and the language of dentistry and your unique problems and have experience in this, that is such a priceless value for you versus kind of the, as we’ll say, the boilerplate strategies that you’ll tend to get from a generalist type advisor.

Ryan Isaac:
0:31:33.6 RI: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s in the nuance and it’s in the details of the nuance over years and years. If you go hire a dental-specific or dental-only CPA today, you’re not going to likely cut your tax bill by 50% because that CPA knows something that other non-dental CPAs know. But if you work with that CPA for years and years, the nuance of the knowledge of the dental industry is going to, it’ll make a huge difference over long periods of time.

Matt Mulcock:
Huge.

Ryan Isaac:
Those little, little things. All right. Number two. Oh yeah. How exactly are you compensated? So you could probably answer this question yourself if no one asks any questions about you, and in the first meeting, they’re trying to sell you something.

Matt Mulcock:
If they’re flipping the screen to you, to show you something.

Ryan Isaac:
On the first meeting, if you get a screen flip.

Matt Mulcock:
If you get the screen flip on the first, the first meeting you’re done for. Run.

Ryan Isaac:
Dude, it’s just such a cheeseball power move to be on the other side of a big mahogany desk.

Matt Mulcock:
And then flip the screen.

Ryan Isaac:
You get that like, All right, let me just flip this around here, and let’s just check this out here, and we’re going to go down this list and you see here, we’ll start at the top.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re like, What? This is the first meeting. You haven’t even asked me any questions. So ask people how they’re compensated. That’ll tell so much of the story. And…

Matt Mulcock:
If you’re halfway through the meeting and they say, What’s your name again? That’s a problem.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Now, look, a lot of our industry is still compensated through commissions, by selling financial products.

Matt Mulcock:
About 85%.

Ryan Isaac:
That could be… Is it really still 85?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Geez. That’s worse than I thought. Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
‘Cause I was gonna say, there’s someone out there who is not compensated like that. It’s becoming more common, but it’s still…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, and that might be a little outdated.

Ryan Isaac:
The incentive is to make, and it’s just… Yeah. But probably not by a much, I guess. But that comes through insurance products, like life insurance and annuities, that comes through selling, working through… Working for the bank or mutual fund or insurance company who sells the funds that go into your accounts.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Kickbacks.

Ryan Isaac:
And it could be… Kickback. And the problem, here’s what kind of sucks about this question, to be honest is, people who are regulated under a different law called the Suitability Standard, don’t really have to answer that question super directly.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
In any kind of like writing, because they can cover their butts legally, this is how it works, if you ask a commission-based person and they don’t really want to tell you how they’re compensated, or a life insurance agent, and they don’t wanna tell you that. Like, Oh yeah, a 110% of the first year’s premium goes to me and my company. And then it takes you a decade to break even. They can cover their butts legally in a court of law by like sliding across the old mahogany desk, like a thick stack of paperwork that has like the percentage breakdown in fees somewhere in there, in a hundred pages.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And then they’ll say… Oh, you don’t pay me. The insurance company pays me.

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t pay me. I work… It’s free to you.

Matt Mulcock:
You don’t pay me, you don’t pay me anything. This is totally free.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, you don’t pay anything…

Matt Mulcock:
That make sense.

Ryan Isaac:
The company just foots the bill.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So insane. How are you compensated? And if they’re… There’s just no reason anymore these days to work with someone who’s earning commissions on financial products. There’s no reason, even though it’s still a lot of the industry, you can find someone else. And hey, we’ll help you find them. We’ll help you find somebody if it’s not us, we’ll help you find someone.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re cool. Number three.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And by the way, by the way, we’re not against the idea of a commission in the sense of, so for example, a practice broker, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
A practice broker is gonna get paid a commission for their work.

Ryan Isaac:
Or a lender.

Matt Mulcock:
Or a lender. They’re gonna get paid a commission.

Ryan Isaac:
Or even, dude, when you…

Matt Mulcock:
Or an insurance person.

Ryan Isaac:
Insurance person, when you’re like, Hey, Mr. Client, you need $2 million of life insurance to go there. That life insurance agent’s gonna get a commission for a term life insurance.

Matt Mulcock:
They’re gonna get a commission, and they should. So…

Ryan Isaac:
They should, that’s how you pay.

Matt Mulcock:
So, I think this is something that gets confused sometimes where people think maybe we’re just like completely…

Ryan Isaac:
Good point.

Matt Mulcock:
Anti-commission, we’re not.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
But the centerpiece of your financial team should not be selling you products.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I think that’s the key, is like your go-to person for financial advice should not be someone who sells you products.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
That person can connect you with someone who needs to sell you a product, because products can be part of the plan, part of your life. They’re always going to be, but you should have some level of distance between your go-to financial person and the product.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Dude, I’m so glad you just said that, because you’re right. When we consult on things that we don’t transact, like insurance or loans, we refer to people who are gonna get paid.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
A commission in that product. But that’s okay. That’s how they get paid. That’s how their business works.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s their career. That’s their living, that’s how their compensation is earned. But it’s transparent at that point. It’s transparent.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. And it’s a transactional thing. They got it done. They hopefully did a good job, and then you move on with your life.

Ryan Isaac:
And they got paid for it. And they move on with it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m glad you said that. Where are we on, number three?

Matt Mulcock:
Number three?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
What are your services?

Ryan Isaac:
What are your services? So we don’t wanna spend a lot of time here, unless you have something a lot to say. This is more just like, go listen to what someone’s gonna do for you, not just upfront, but like ongoing. So again, I’m glad you told this story earlier, Matt, how… The client who called you, how long have they worked with you? Do you remember?

Matt Mulcock:
Years. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Three years or more.

Ryan Isaac:
So when you’re gonna hire someone, depending, you might not need a Matt, that’s you can call like that three years later. But many people want that, and that’s a high level of service that a lot of people do want. So when you’re just asking about their services, don’t take like high level, just general terms for face value. So if someone’s like, Oh, we do planning, it’s like, what does that mean?

Matt Mulcock:
What does that mean?

Ryan Isaac:
What does that mean? Just how do you define that? Tell me from a process standpoint in your business, how do you define that? What does that mean to you? What are the actions you are gonna take as part of this, planning word? So yeah. Like what… Does it match up with what you’re looking for, and what you need at the time. Which could be different based on who you are, time of your life, career, whatever. So, number four, what are your investment philosophy and methodology? Cool.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s such a broad range of philosophies when it comes to how someone will invest in the public stock market, and how to do it, and how to do it over long periods of time, more importantly, ’cause that’s really how stock market works. Huge, a very important discussion to have. And even if you yourself might not have a set like philosophy that you’ve landed on, but asking that question to someone who does it for a living might help you shape yours. And you can listen to the way that they describe their philosophy and methodology for how they do investing in the public stock market, and other asset classes. And that might resonate with you and help you shape your own or it might not resonate with you. And then you’re glad you asked.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. The the key here too is the more jargon that’s being used and things that sound like it’s going over your head, the more I’d be a little nervous on the answer. If they can’t describe it.

Ryan Isaac:
Simply.

Matt Mulcock:
Very simple and very quickly then I’d be a little bit nervous about that.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. [chuckle] I’m just thinking like, simply, yes. Down to earth, yes. Human to human, yes. Quickly, [chuckle] I struggle with that sometimes.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Like sometimes a client will be like, Can you tell me about like why we have these types of funds in my account? And I’m like, Oh, okay Ryan…

Matt Mulcock:
You’re like, buckle up.

Ryan Isaac:
Give them the two minute version. [laughter] Because I get so nerdy, I get so excited.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally.

Ryan Isaac:
I just wanna like, just I wanna break out charts and graphs [chuckle] and show people.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And I still think that’s…

Ryan Isaac:
It has its place.

Matt Mulcock:
I guess quickly is probably not the right way to put it. I think simply…

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Like simple to understand…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, simply.

Matt Mulcock:
Is the word there.

Ryan Isaac:
Clear.

Matt Mulcock:
Clear and simple?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Right. I think advisors use, we’ve talked about this before, advisor… One of the main problems with our industry and what makes us unique is… What has been traditional with the advisor space is using the information gap between client and advisor as a weapon.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And they do this, they actually, advisors a lot of times want to actually expand and create even more of a gap by using things like jargon. They don’t want you to be educated on what they’re… Educated on this because they want to sell you something. And the less you know the more they can sell. And so we’ve done this differently where we’re no, we actually, what we say, is sell with education. We want to close that gap. We want to be a collaborator with you. We want you to actually understand this because that’s what actually creates lifelong clients in our opinion and relationships is closing that information gap, you feeling empowered to make better decisions. And you might hear that as far as like taglines or whatever, but you’re going to know by asking these types of questions if that advisor actually is proving that out. If they’re taking the time to explain this to you very simply and again, in a way that’s clear and concise, then you know, okay, they’re actually in this. But if they’re again, using jargon and trying to like make you feel dumb and make them seem smart, that’s a problem.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Man, I’m really glad you said that. I can think of like one of the most satisfying things to me that really honestly just makes me super happy as an advisor is seeing a client just become more educated and just like become more aware and learning more about something that wasn’t familiar to them when they started. To be able to explain to their friends, to help other people out, to maybe help a team member with something around money or investments or planning because they learned it along the way. That’s a really satisfying thing actually for people to become more educated.

Matt Mulcock:
Absolutely, it’s like the best part of our job.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it’s really cool. Besides wearing like Santa hats and having microphones to say whatever you want.

Matt Mulcock:
Boom mics, boom mics.

Ryan Isaac:
That part’s for the boom mics. Oh, what are you on here? Number…

Matt Mulcock:
Five.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, number five. What happens to me if something happens to you? Yeah, what’s like continuity? If the advisor disappears for some reason or another, then like where’s my stuff? I don’t know if this is a question. This feels like the reverse. It just came to my mind. This might be on here, but the question could be, it’s like the reverse of that. The client would ask, if something happens to me, the client, what happens to all my stuff with my family?

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
And to people who aren’t on these calls all the time and aren’t as involved, business partners, spouse partners, children, heirs.

Matt Mulcock:
Both sides of that need to be addressed.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, both sides of that coin. Yeah, like how does someone access like all of this? Which is a really important question. Number six.

Matt Mulcock:
Number six, what is your educational background?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh yeah. Yeah, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. I think this, you know it’d be interesting, Matt, is we did this podcast, if anyone wants to… Reese and I did a podcast, it was so long ago, episode 214. It’s called Our Answers to Nine Questions, or 10 Questions Asked [0:42:31.3] ____.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, interesting, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
214. We went through, it was pretty long, and answered all of these. But that was a long time ago, and a lot of them will still be the same, but I’ll bet some of them would be, we just would have more insight after years and years since we did this. Me and you should do this. Like go back and answer these.

Matt Mulcock:
We totally should.

Ryan Isaac:
Like get an update. It’d be kind of cool.

Matt Mulcock:
The thing I’d add to this is what is your educational background/experience? I think that kind of goes hand in hand, but.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, experience is education, for sure.

Matt Mulcock:
I think the key here is the difference between, again, if we’re using dentistry versus our industry, when you go to a dentist, when someone goes to a dentist with the letters DDS behind their name, you pretty much, for all intents and purposes, know that they went through a pretty standard barrier to entry to be able to call themselves a dentist. They might be a different type of dentist than the guy down the street. One does bread and butter, drill and fill type stuff. The other one does heavy endo or whatever, but they’re both dentists. With our industry, this is why this is such a critical question, is the barrier to entry to call yourself a financial advisor at the base level is so low. Guess what it is? High school diploma and passing a test that would take you a few weeks to probably study for, for the most part. So that’s the problem with this, is you need to dig into this a little bit deeper. And this is where, again, our industry as a whole needs to get better with standardizing barriers to entry. But this is a problem. You could talk to 100 people, all of them call themselves financial advisors, and all 100 do something different, and all 100 have different backgrounds and experience. And so you need to really make sure that you’re digging into this one.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, such a good example. It goes back to when you ask someone what their services are and they say, Oh, we do tax planning and planning and investing. And you’re well, what does that mean? Because that means so many different things. Great point, Matt. Number seven, would you be willing to share exactly what you do, advisor, with your own financial planning, insurance, and investments? I love that question.

Matt Mulcock:
Love it.

Ryan Isaac:
Because at Dentist Advisors, we eat our own cooking. Is that the phrase?

Matt Mulcock:
Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
We eat our own cooking.

Matt Mulcock:
We make our own sausage. No, wait, no.

Ryan Isaac:
Do we? No, we don’t make the sausage, we eat our own cooking.

Matt Mulcock:
But we eat the sausage we make.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re so confused. My portfolio looks exactly the same as my client’s portfolio. How’s that?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, we invest in what we cook, or wait.

Ryan Isaac:
The cooking and the preparing. Are you a sous chef in this example?

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t know.

Ryan Isaac:
Are you Remy the rat in someone’s hat? Are you pulling…

Matt Mulcock:
No, that’s Robbie. Robbie.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s Robbie? Oh, Robbie’s the rat.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s Robbie. It’s gotta be. He’s the brain behind the operation.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s, okay. Well, anyway, you get the point. You get the point. Question number eight. How many clients do you work with? This kind of goes to the experience, education, background. You say you work with dentists. Well, what does that mean?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, how many dentists?

Ryan Isaac:
How many?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, one question we get around this too is like per advisor. Do you limit your advisors to so many clients? Because that speaks to capacity.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, how much attention it’s gonna get.

Matt Mulcock:
Are you going to give me the time and energy that I need and deserve? I think is really critical there.

Ryan Isaac:
When I make a big six-figure mistake, can I call Matt and like talk to him within 24 hours?

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. Exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
Around here the answer is yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Number nine. Are you a fiduciary?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh yeah. Love this. Great question to ask. We won’t go into like what these mean and all the differences, but I will say that there are fiduciaries who also will sell products for commissions. So the word fiduciary won’t weed out everything, but it’ll weed out a lot. Some of the other follow-up questions will lead you to the answers you’re looking for though about compensation and services and background. So yeah, that’s a good one. Number 10, we made it number 10. Oh, why did you decide to enter this occupation?

Matt Mulcock:
I love this one.

Ryan Isaac:
Wow. I forgot this question was on there.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. That’s a really great question. And we’ll go back and it’ll just speak to the other questions. Why are you here and what do you do? And how many people do you do this with and how long have you been doing this? That’ll tell you a lot about why someone’s in the spot they’re in right now and…

Matt Mulcock:
I’d almost To be honest, I’d almost start with that one. If I was going to do this.

Ryan Isaac:
I would too.

Matt Mulcock:
0:46:48.9 Matt: I’d almost say you’re interviewing an advisor. Hey, tell me your story. How’d you get into this and why?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Why are you here?

Matt Mulcock:
And why are… Not only how did you get into this, but why did you stick around? Why are you still in the industry?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Well it’s funny, Matt, when I tell people what I do for a living, their first question is why dentists?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Oh, every time.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, once they, clarify if I said Dennis or dentists…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m a financial advisor for Dennis and they’re like Dennis.

Matt Mulcock:
One guy, family office.

Ryan Isaac:
Like one guy named Dennis…

Matt Mulcock:
He’s super Rich.

Ryan Isaac:
Can’t name his last name.

Matt Mulcock:Yeah. [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
And it’s a pseudonym…

Matt Mulcock:
But his name’s Dennis.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. It’s Dennis. It’s not acronym.

Matt Mulcock:
His real name’s George. [0:47:24.8] ____ we call him Dennis. [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Yeah. Why dentist? That’s such a good, maybe we’ll relabel those and like reorder those.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Anyway, okay, I’m gonna wrap this up by saying the conclusion of my car. This never happens to me ever. This never happens to me, dude.

Matt Mulcock:
It was nothing.

Ryan Isaac:
It turns out okay. Oh, here’s another example though. The last few oil changes that I’ve done, I chose to save a little money by going to a generic oil change place and not the dealership ’cause the dealership always charges more, right?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Can’t do that.

Ryan Isaac:
Turns out that there was a safety, it wasn’t a full recall, but there was like a safety service recall on my car almost two years ago, of a little holes coming out of the radiator that will tend to leak over time. I didn’t finish telling the story. When I got home in my Uber that day, I pulled up to the driveway and my driveway was full of coolant. All over the driveway.

Matt Mulcock:
And you didn’t notice it.

Ryan Isaac:
Didn’t see that when I pulled out. And when I went there and they finally called me back a couple days later, they’re like, Hey, it turns out there was a service request you were supposed to do. Where do you normally get your oil changes? This should have popped up. And I’m like, oh, I go to a discount place by my house, which I’ll never do again.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I tried to save money. I could have blown up however much an engine costs by riding it on the freeway with the severe overheating light on.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep.

Ryan Isaac:
By just trying to save a little bit of money on my maintenance and not going to the people who know this stuff. Well they would’ve fixed this like almost two years ago and I wouldn’t have been putting coolant in my car this whole time. So it was free, Matt. It was free. It was a Festivus miracle.

Matt Mulcock:
What? Festivus Miracle.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. This 2-year-old service recall that I never did. It was free. It’s fixed, it’s lovely. And now I’ll always just go to the dealer and pay probably twice as much money for an oil change.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
But I’ll always…

Matt Mulcock:
It’s for a reason.

Ryan Isaac:
Have it done by the right people.

Matt Mulcock:
Merry…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Who knows…

Matt Mulcock:
Freaking Christmas.

Ryan Isaac:
Merry Christmas. Happy…

Matt Mulcock:
Are you kidding me.

Ryan Isaac:
Holidays and Festivus and it’s a Festivus miracle.

Matt Mulcock:
: That really is.

Ryan Isaac:
So anyway, that was, my story and thank you for sticking around and listening to it. And Matt, thanks for all the insights on the questions asked.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, of course. Hope it’s helpful. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I think it will be, we should go through and answer these questions.

Matt Mulcock:
We should do a part 2 where we answer for each other.

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s do it. Oh, yeah. We’ll do a part two.

Matt Mulcock:
Like we, grill each other. Let’s do like a role play. Where like, I’ll be the client, you be the advisor and then we’ll switch.

Ryan Isaac:
I wanna be the client. No, I’m gonna be me.

Matt Mulcock:
You be the client, I’ll be the advisor.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m gonna be crusty and skeptical…

Matt Mulcock:
Deal.

Ryan Isaac:
And jaded. Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Love it.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks to all of you for sticking around and listening and, we do hope this is helpful and you find something useful in it. And if you have any questions for us, we love being on the phone and answering questions and pointing you in the right direction. So just go to dentistadvisors.com and you can book a free consultation and chat with one of us. Get yourself a Matt in 2024…

Matt Mulcock:
Happy New Year.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what I’m gonna part with. Happy New Year and all the things. Thanks Matt. See you later.

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Bye bye.

Advisors