5 Signs It Could Be Time to Fire Your Advisor – Episode #365

Breaking up is hard to do—but when it comes to your financial future, these five warning signs could indicate it’s time to find a new advisor. On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan, Matt, and Amanda talk about why a dentist might not be satisfied with their advisor. The good news is they also explain how to find one who can provide the service you expect.  

 

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show brought to you by Dentist Advisors. Dentist Advisors is a comprehensive, fiduciary, no commission financial advisor just for dentists all over the country. Check us out at dentistadvisors.com. Today on the show we welcome financial advisor Amanda. Amanda joined the show today with Matt and I and she brought a really cool article that she found about the five reasons that you should fire your financial advisor. This ended up actually being a really good discussion and I think spurs a lot of really good questions for people out there looking to find a financial advisor or evaluate their current one. Great discussion, many thanks to Amanda. We’re excited to have her on the show and looking forward to having her back many times in the future. Thanks again for spending your time with us. Thanks to Matt as always and thanks to all of you for tuning in and listening every single week. We really appreciate it. Thanks for being here and enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consult 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:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. It’s good to be here in studio. I am Ryan and I’m here with Matt as we always are.

Matt Mulcock:
Hello.

Ryan Isaac:
But we have a very special guest, newly minted mama. Can I say that?

Amanda Bateman:
Sure.

Ryan Isaac:
Amanda, welcome to the show Amanda.

Amanda Bateman:
Thanks Ryan. Thanks Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
We just found out that sometimes we say things unintentionally offensive so it’s good that you asked that.

Ryan Isaac:
Well we just… Would you have said no?

Amanda Bateman:
I actually thought I can’t say no ’cause it’s already being recorded.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, you can say no and we can edit it.

Matt Mulcock:
Any of this can be edited.

Amanda Bateman:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
I realize that I think I said it and then I asked you if I could say it.

Amanda Bateman:
The only difference…

Matt Mulcock:
That’s the classic male move.

Ryan Isaac:
Is I’m not really a newly minted mom…

Matt Mulcock:
I mean kind of.

Amanda Bateman:
I’ve been a mom for like 11 years.

Ryan Isaac:
You’ve been a mom for 11 years, but you just had a baby a couple months ago.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, when you have like a new… People say this to me. They’ll be like…

Ryan Isaac:
New mom, new dad, new parent.

Matt Mulcock:
Like you’re a new dad again or like…

Amanda Bateman:
True.

Matt Mulcock:
Dad times two or whatever. It’s like once you have a couple kids, you say it every time after the kid.

Ryan Isaac:
You deserve to be called new because it’s a very… And this is me speaking, I’m not even involved in all the process.

Matt Mulcock:
‘Cause you understand.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a process you deserve to be recognized for every time you go through it.

Matt Mulcock:
100%.

Amanda Bateman:
It is truly my most favorite job on the planet that I get to do.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s cool. So anyone listening, many of you probably know Amanda. Amanda, did you join us a year ago?

Amanda Bateman:
It’s been almost 18 months.

Matt Mulcock:
That is wild.

Ryan Isaac:
God, it went by so fast. Many of you have heard Amanda speak. Just had a really great event with Mommy Dentist in Business in Vegas. It was a big group.

Amanda Bateman:
Well, if you were there you might not have heard me speak so much as whisper.

Ryan Isaac:
It was the best presentation anyone’s given in the history of our company. You lost your voice the night before and you whispered an entire presentation.

Matt Mulcock:
When we say lost your voice, it was legitimately gone. You were whispering. We got to get that like a little blurb of that video up.

Ryan Isaac:
We should do that. That was the best engagement we might’ve ever had in almost 15 years of doing presentations when you whispered. You’re onto something. You created a new marketing tool.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re just gonna start whispering all of our presentations.

Ryan Isaac:
Whisper advice.

Amanda Bateman:
Just call me the Dennis whisperer. That’s what I’m going with.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. That’s the new…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I like that.

Ryan Isaac:
Amanda, the dentist whisperer.

Matt Mulcock:
I got accused one time of sounding like Seth Rogen.

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
I’ve also gotten Kermit the Frog. So there’s that.

Amanda Bateman:
If it makes you feel better at one time, I’ve got a small voice. Some might say like a child.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. [chuckle]

Amanda Bateman:
And so…

Ryan Isaac:
I didn’t say that.

Matt Mulcock:
No one here said that.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s not something I said. Today, Amanda found our topic for us and it’s a really cool topic. It’s gonna relate to the process of interacting with and hiring and just having a relationship with a financial advisor. Just a few things I wanted to point out on our website at dennisadvisors.com there’s a couple, they’re Whitepaper. They are… What do we call them? E-guides. If you go to…

Matt Mulcock:
Whitepaper.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, Whitepaper is for scientists.

Matt Mulcock:
More… Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Doctory.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s more researchy.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s researchy. We have E-guides at dennisadvisors.com. It’s under the Resources tab, I believe. And it’s under E-guides. But I think it’s questions on what to ask when you hire a financial advisor. There might even be a two-part E-guide.

Matt Mulcock:
If you just go on the website you can search… It’s like 10 questions to ask.

Ryan Isaac:
Is it 10? Okay. Cool.

Matt Mulcock:
Something like that.

Matt Mulcock:
Amanda, found us this cool thing that came from SmartAsset, which you know what I like about SmartAsset is we use their tax calculator tool.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. All the time.

Ryan Isaac:
If you ever wanna project it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. They’ve got some great tools on there.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s really helpful. But this is an article called Five Signs It Could Be Time to Fire Your Advisor. What I’m excited about is that I haven’t read this yet. And this might either go really well or really poorly.

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
That’s pretty much every show we’ve ever done.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s either gonna go really well or it’s gonna crash and burn.

Amanda Bateman:
So far it’s working.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s the format. I just mean that what if I read something that should make someone fire me? That’s fine though. That’s deserved.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, wait for number three.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
Wait until you get to number three?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s like those really catchy articles. Like wait, you won’t believe until you read number three.

Ryan Isaac:
People write headlines like that. Amanda, how did you come across this? Or what made you wanna talk about this in the first place? I’m just curious like what came to your mind when you saw it?

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, so I actually found this on Facebook. We do…

Ryan Isaac:
Where truth is found.

Matt Mulcock:
Obviously. The only place to find your truth. Yeah.

Amanda Bateman:
So I’d like to think that this article found me.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, good.

Matt Mulcock:
Cool, okay.

Amanda Bateman:
Through the algorithm.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it did.

Matt Mulcock:
It totally did.

Amanda Bateman:
I knew what it was doing. So I actually read this and the reason I wanted to do this is because as I read it, it was really positive and great for us. It’s pretty much everything on this list is the opposite of what we do.

Matt Mulcock:
Didn’t make you nervous.

Amanda Bateman:
No, I read it and I was like…

Ryan Isaac:
Made you proud.

Amanda Bateman:
Check, check, check.

Matt Mulcock:
Cool. That’s awesome.

Amanda Bateman:
So shared it with our team and it’s funny as I’m rereading this ’cause I found it a month or so ago, kind of forgot about it. But as I was rereading it to prepare today, I was brought back to a consult I had earlier this week with a couple of dentists who actually are local to me, which is great. I always get really excited for those of you who don’t know I know…

Ryan Isaac:
Oh yeah. You can see them. Yeah. How local? Like within minutes.

Amanda Bateman:
About an hour and a half or so…

Ryan Isaac:
That’s minutes.

Amanda Bateman:
Which is pretty good.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s still pretty local. It’s…

Ryan Isaac:
90.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s minutes in there. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Just 90 of them.

Matt Mulcock:
You could break that down to minutes. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s local. I would consider that local.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. With the whole team being out here in Utah and me running the East Coast like I do in South
Carolina…

Ryan Isaac:
And make no mistake, she runs the East Coast.

Matt Mulcock:
She runs it like Beyonce.

Ryan Isaac:
Owns it and runs it. The East Coast is yours, Amanda.

Amanda Bateman:
That’s right. I’m claiming that. So I was meeting with them and they were just sharing as all of our consults are really low pressure. We’re just here to see how we can help people. And they were telling me they already work with a financial advisor and that always springs to mind. “Well, why are you looking?” Clearly something isn’t happening with your current advisor that’s making you seek out some other advisor opinion. So yeah, as I was reading through this it was a lot of the things that they brought up and I felt a little self conscious in the consult being like, “Oh, well, we can fix that for you. We can fix, like everything that you’re describing we do business differently with our clients. And it’s a really good feeling. I get really nerdy about this and emotional, being a woman and all that.

Ryan Isaac:
No, I hate. We didn’t say that.

Amanda Bateman:
I said it. I can say it.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay. Yes, you can.

Ryan Isaac:
I will just for the record say that one of the most emotional people I’ve ever had in my entire life is a man.

Matt Mulcock:
I thought you… Me. Its me you meant.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s not you. Spoiler alert. It’s not you. So that doesn’t hold.

Amanda Bateman:
Well, I’m a man duh.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m quite emotional. I admit it.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s okay. It’s 2020, almost 2023. We can all own our emotions and have them however we feel like having them. Okay, here’s a… I’m glad you said that. Matt and I, I mean, we’ve been having conversations recently about kind of the why behind a lot of the stuff we’ve done. Our company turns 15 this year, I think. And shout out to Reese Harper.

Matt Mulcock:
The Haas. We have a teenager now.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, we do. We do have a teenager. That is kind of…

Matt Mulcock:
Things get a little wild.

Ryan Isaac:
I have two 15 year olds now.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, you do.

Ryan Isaac:
An actual one. And then this place. But everything we’ve done since the very beginning, whether it was a huge decision or a tiny one, has always been the question that spurted on has always been like what’s gonna help the dentist? What do they actually need in their lives that will make their life better? And I’m glad you bring this up because even our company’s we’re really proud of the size that we’ve reached. And we have hopefully a lot of, many, many years ahead of us. But even when we reach our pinnacle, whenever that is, it’s still just a tiny fraction of the whole industry. And so our goal, especially with this podcast, was to just teach as much as we can and share these conversations. Like you have this great conversation one on one with somebody. But that’s something that thousands of dentists should be able to hear. Why did that person reach out to you, Amanda? What were their reasons and what was helpful to them? That’s great for them, but there’s a lot of people that need to hear this, too. So I’m stoked for this. Okay, let’s dive into this. Five Signs It Could be Time to Fire Your Financial Advisor. Anyone sweating?

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, Amanda read it and said she was super confident and happy after reading it. You’re nervous.

Ryan Isaac:
No, I like this.

Matt Mulcock:
So who knows?

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s start with this first section. Does anyone want to comment? The first section is why work with an advisor? They have some stats in here. Does anyone want to comment on any of these stats and add anything to how would you answer that question? Why work with an advisor, which is probably a whole other subject anyway.

0:09:48.7 Amanda: When you’re looking at these types of things, a lot of the focus is on returns that clients get from their portfolios. And so I’m hesitant to lead with that because I think our value that we give to clients goes so far beyond portfolio and investment returns.

Ryan Isaac:
Can I ask you really fast, Amanda, on that thought? You’ve been in the industry quite a while, Are there studies that show what clients really want from their advisor? And I’m pretty sure if any, either of you know, I’m pretty sure returns are not the top of that list of what they really want from an advisor. I think it has to do almost entirely around communications. Like I want somebody to talk to throughout my life when I have to make decisions. I think that’s the biggest driver.

Amanda Bateman:
I don’t know about the studies. I can’t reference any studies, but I just know from my experience what I’ve seen is most people just want to know that they’re on the right track. Or if they’re not, what do they need to do to get on the right track? Having someone to help them get to being on the right track. I’m terrible with statistics and numbers.

Ryan Isaac:
We make them up.

Amanda Bateman:
Don’t tell my clients I’m bad with numbers.

Ryan Isaac:
No, Amanda, all you have to do is say, “Studies show” and then say whatever you want.

Matt Mulcock:
We do it all the time. Who’s going to fact check?

Matt Mulcock:
It works like a charm.

Ryan Isaac:
Just kidding. Don’t do that.

Amanda Bateman:
You guys are charmers. I’m not there yet.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
That’s it. That’s another word for a word we have to bleep out.

Matt Mulcock:
I also like to throw out random percentages. Like 87% of people think this.

Ryan Isaac:
So okay, you’re saying this leads with a statistic about returns, but I still think it’s… I mean returns translate to wealth and I mean that’s part of the question that like am I gonna make it one day? So I think it’s still relevant.

Matt Mulcock:
So I also think this comes… So do you want to reference… Do you wanna hit the numbers here?

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, yeah. So it’s saying that what Vanguard did is they looked at an average hypothetical portfolio of 500K invested one time and then they measured the value of that portfolio 25 years later. So they said “Okay, if you’re under the care of a financial advisor, or you’re working with someone who’s helping you make good decisions, have good behavior, all that, then you’re gonna grow those 500,000 up to 3.4 million.” Any guesses on what a self-directed investor does?

Ryan Isaac:
It’s gonna be 3% less, whatever that turns out to be.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean I have it in front of me so I’d be cheating.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, I didn’t even look at it. I’m so dumb.

Amanda Bateman:
So you’re saying 3% less per year.

Ryan Isaac:
Less, over time. Yeah, over time which is a lot of money.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, it is 3% less. The fact that you knew that from your brain is amazing.

Ryan Isaac:
Well that’s the study. We’re gonna do a whole other episode.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s got a steel trap.

Ryan Isaac:
Steel trap.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, so but you hear 3% and you think oh, that’s probably not that much. But…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Whats the dollar number?

Amanda Bateman:
If we annualize that, it’s 50% less.

Ryan Isaac:
Holy crap.

Amanda Bateman:
So it goes from 3.4 million to having 1.69 million.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that’s that…

Matt Mulcock:
So $1.7 million, plus.

Ryan Isaac:
And so in terms of like what can you pull out of… Alright, so if you end up in retirement and you end up with a $1.7 million portfolio, you could probably take about 70 grand a year on average.

Matt Mulcock:
Double that.

Ryan Isaac:
Without even depleting it, yeah. But if you have a $3.4 million portfolio you can take about $135,000, $140,000 a year without depleting your principal. That’s a game changer. That’s a total lifestyle difference.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, and I think what I was gonna say on this is to your point, Amanda I think it’s a good point of saying like we don’t wanna start with returns. We don’t talk about returns a lot. We don’t lead with that in our conversations, we’re leading with all the stuff that I think produces returns that maybe people don’t think about. So we’ve talked about this a lot, Ryan, of this whole idea of temperament over tactics type of thing. Right?

Ryan Isaac:
Well, hold on. We have, but did you just coin that phrase?

Matt Mulcock:
I just made it up. A t-shirt is coming.

Amanda Bateman:
That’s the Paper. Dr. Pepper.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
It’s the doctor Pepper speaking. No, that’s the caramel sugar…

Matt Mulcock:
Latte we had this morning.

Ryan Isaac:
Latte macchiato…

Matt Mulcock:
Which was phenomenon by the way.

Ryan Isaac:
Christmas flavored thing that you bought this morning.

Matt Mulcock:
I felt embarrassed ordering it, but I also was really happy I did. It was so good.

Amanda Bateman:
I was proud of you.

Ryan Isaac:
So anyway, what did you say…

Matt Mulcock:
And we’re gonna get more into this in the van… We’re gonna do a separate…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. On this study.

Matt Mulcock:
On this ’cause people might be asking how in the heck would Vanguard even know this? Meaning how could they throw these numbers out?

Ryan Isaac:
I would say if anyone knows it’s Vanguard.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s Vanguard, right? But they have the data to back this up and we’ll break this down in another show of the Vanguard study as it’s known in the industry.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Advisors Alpha, is the name of the paper.

Matt Mulcock:
Advisors Alpha. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the whole idea here and we’re gonna actually get into this of the reasons why you’d fire an advisor, I think comes back to this idea of, do they value the idea of temperament over tactics? Meaning are they focused on selling you, you sit down with an advisor. I tell this to people all the time. If you sit down with someone, an advisor, like in a sales car or a meeting, like a prospect meeting, you’re trying to hire this person and they start presenting to you fancy numbers and products and like, Oh, we’re gonna do this or that or whatever. That’s a pretty much a telltale sign that they’re trying to sell you a tactics versus what we do all the time, which is trying to sell you with this idea of your temperament, your behavior…

Ryan Isaac:
That’s an indicator.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s the indicator. That’s just not sexy. It’s not fun to hear that. Like you wanna get healthy…

Amanda Bateman:
I love saying not sexy in a consult call.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
I know this isn’t sexy.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s not.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s not.

Matt Mulcock:
You know what I say is “I know I’m not sexy.” I mean, sorry…

Ryan Isaac:
Subconsciously?

Matt Mulcock:
I know this isn’t… Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, yeah. I mean, temperament’s a thing that only you only see results of temperament, just like habits over long periods of time. And we’re as humans, we’re just not wired to be excited about long term results. Yeah, we’re just not. We’re not them.

Matt Mulcock:
Who wants to be told, “Hey, you wanna get in shape? Give me the next five years. We’ll go to the gym every day and I’ll plan out your meals.” It’s like, “No, I don’t… Give me the pill.”

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Amanda, back to you really fast. So that’s a huge spread of money. That difference. And that’s what, again, this Advisor’s Alpha. That’s what Vanguard is showing us. So, I mean, they’re leading with this for a reason though, because they’re just trying to show there’s things that happen with a financial advisor that don’t happen when you don’t have one, when you’re doing it on your own, that make a very meaningful, very significant difference. I mean, this example is actually perfect because I think if we, when we do our end… We’re gonna do our end of year, Spotify rap style end of year statistics soon.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s so fun. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
I think our average size portfolio is around this number, isn’t it?

Matt Mulcock:
The 1.7?

Ryan Isaac:
No, no, no, no, the like 500 grand or something. The average size person’s like…

Matt Mulcock:
I would guess it’s probably close.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s gotta be close. That might be a little low over hundreds and hundreds of people. But that’s a very realistic example of a dentist with half a million dollars that they’ve saved over a period of time and then have, what’s the period of time that they’re given here? 20 years?

Amanda Bateman:
25 years.

Ryan Isaac:
25. Yeah. That’s like, that’s totally, that’s a very good example of an average dentist and what would happen…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Over the next… Yeah. It’s a good point.

Ryan Isaac:
Over a career.

Matt Mulcock:
Over the next 25 years.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. When you finally are done and you sell everything do you have 1.7 or do you have 3.4 in that? It’s like a game changing lifestyle when you’re 65. That’s totally huge.

Amanda Bateman:
I love that the article’s saying there’s value in hiring a financial advisor. Don’t just hire anyone who claims to be a financial advisor.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Which is the point of the article.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s huge.

Ryan Isaac:
The other thing I love about the Vanguard, can we shout out that you came from Vanguard?

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. Shout out.

Ryan Isaac:
Again, I’m saying things and asking you permission after.

Amanda Bateman:
I’m really…

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
“You’re from Vanguard. Can we say that?”

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
Can we say that you came from Vanguard? Do you mind if I say that? Yeah. I mean, what I like about the Vanguard study, why I love their data is because they’ve historically been known as kind of, I don’t want to say anti advisor, but they best…

Amanda Bateman:
We believe you can do it yourself. Self directed.

Ryan Isaac:
Very, very encouraging of DIY. So for them to come out with statistics, obviously that’s part of their business model now and has been for years, but for them, they feel like a very unbiased group of people and their data pool is gigantic, but that feels like a very unbiased opinion for them. Like the DIY champions to say like, “Hey, here’s the difference an advisor makes over time. And it’s massive. It’s huge.

Jess Reynolds:
Hey everyone. It’s Jess Reynolds with Dentist Advisors. You’ve heard us talk about Elements, our system that provides a scorecard to monitor your financial health. Well, Elements is now a cutting edge mobile app recently featured in Financial Planning Magazine. And we wanna give our listeners a chance to try it for free. So here’s what you need to do. Go to dentistadvisors.com/scorecard and book a free financial assessment. We’ll send you an invitation for you to download the Elements app. And then after you enter your info you’ll have a free, no obligation meeting with one of our CFP advisors to understand if you’re doing okay financially. Again, to get your free financial assessment, all you have to do is visit dentistadvisors.com/scorecard. Do it today.

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s go into the five reasons. Reason number one, Amanda, why don’t you kick us off? What is reason number one It could be time to fire your advisor. Very harsh here.

Amanda Bateman:
They are not a fiduciary.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. I wanna ask a question to the two of you from your experience talking to dentists. How familiar do you think dentists are on average with the term fiduciary? What it means or what it implies?

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t think… I think they’re familiar with the term. Like they’ve…

Ryan Isaac:
Heard of it.

Matt Mulcock:
Heard of it. I think lately I’ve been hearing much more than even like five years ago of people saying like, I know this word fiduciary or something like they’ve heard of it. To say they know what it means. Probably not a lot. They just know that they should be asking about it.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. Another point to that is there are advisors who work in a fiduciary capacity, but also work in a suitability capacity and knowing the difference between those and that an advisor can be both and you may not be able as the client to determine when they’re acting under which hat. And so that just…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s confusing.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, it complicates.

Matt Mulcock:
I just talked about this last week that the… How crazy the industry is that like fee only and fee based…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Don’t mean the same thing.

Matt Mulcock:
Do not mean the same thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Sound like they would.

Matt Mulcock:
They very much do. And I’ve heard this so many times and people are like, Oh no, no, no. They said they’re fee based. It’s all good. It’s like, no, that is very different. Like you cannot legally say you are fee only if you sell products or get commissions or get kickbacks. But what these advisors have now done and what you’re saying, this duly registered environment, which is where I used to be, I used to do that.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s all right, man.

Amanda Bateman:
You’re reformed.

Ryan Isaac:
We love you.

Matt Mulcock:
I’ve reformed. I’m recovered. But what they do is they say they’re fee based knowing it’s confusing to the marketplace and they use it to their advantage. It’s…

Ryan Isaac:
Well, that’s how our industry operates as a whole, right? Just confuse people to the point where they just give you money.

Matt Mulcock:
Use jargon. Yeah. Yep.

Ryan Isaac:
So to back it up a little bit, for anyone who’s wondering maybe what those terms mean. In our industry legally there’s two… And these are like legal standards that you’re held to that the compliance around the stuff that you can be sued over and it’s the fiduciary standard and then the suitability standard. I don’t have any… Do you guys know the ratio between the two in the industry these days what it is.

Amanda Bateman:
Oh, I wish I did.

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t. I’m going to guess it’s still very much on the suitability side.

Ryan Isaac:
Suitability is where it began. And this always feels crazy to me when I try to explain to someone what fiduciary means, because when you’re a dentist there is only one standard of care really. If you’re a financial person in our industry there’s two standards of care. The most common biggest and oldest is the suitability, which means if you ever did something to somebody and got sued for it, all you have to prove in court is that it was suitable. Now think about doing dental work like that. Like you go in and a dentist just does a crap job on purpose, knowing better, not just ’cause they weren’t a good dentist, but like they knew better and did a bad job and they got in trouble and all they had to do… The bar of proof, the burden of proof was so low. It was just all I had to do is prove that it was a suitable thing for your mouth. It wasn’t the best for it. It wasn’t what I knew was best. I didn’t even tell you it was the worst thing. It was just good enough. And so sorry.

Matt Mulcock:
Not to mention that I, again, I lived in that world for several years. The suitability standard is a questionnaire the advisor fills out. It is so generic and ambiguous. It’s just like you could basically for the, unless it’s just so egregious and let’s be real, there’s been advisors that have been sued that have obviously been had their stuff pulled, been banned from the industry, but put in jail even. But it has to be that bad.

Amanda Bateman:
That would be a good episode.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, we can talk about that for days. But to your point, to be suitable is very much a gray area.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s so vague.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s on a spectrum. It’s like, well yeah, you could argue that yeah, this annuity is suitable.

Ryan Isaac:
Totally.

Matt Mulcock:
If it’s their age and income bracket, that’s all it is.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s so vague.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s a questionnaire. It’s like a five question questionnaire.

Ryan Isaac:
And the other thing too, that I’ve been in awe over during our years as a fiduciary is the amount of compliance red tape we have to go through to do anything.

Matt Mulcock:
Anything. It’s wild.

Ryan Isaac:
Anything. I mean, just this year, 2022 is the first year in history that a firm like ours can even use a client testimonial. We can’t say anything. I don’t even know how many thousands of dollars a month we have to pay for even a small firm like ours in compliance attorney fees every month and have for over a decade. It’s nuts how tight our hands are. If you go to the suitability side of the industry, and you guys hear this, when your clients will bring proposals from insurance salespeople or people pitching private investments or something, there’s like no oversight. They say… The people will be like, oh, this life insurance illustration, they told me I’ll get like a guaranteed 12% annual rate of return no matter what, or 14 or 16% or 18%. And it’s just like, they can say that?

Matt Mulcock:
They can say, yeah, a bunch of stuff.

Ryan Isaac:
I can’t even put someone on our website that says, dentist advisors helped me, period. But you can say, I guarantee you a 16% rate of return in your insurance policy with no downside. You can say that. But I mean, so like the compliance around these two issues, it’s insane. So what Amanda is saying, and this is what the article is saying, number one, if you’re working with somebody who is not a fiduciary, it’s a red flag. We’ve talked about this before on the show. There’s a few words you can look for on someone’s website that will tip you off if this person’s a fiduciary or if they’re what Amanda was saying, which is… Both of you were saying this, dually registered, which means they’re a fiduciary and they’re registered as like a commission based person under the suitability standard. So if you go to someone’s website and scroll to the bottom, usually all the legal jargons in the bottom and the little footer. And if you see words… Add some if you guys think of, but if you see words like FINRA, F-I-N-R-A in capital letters, if you see the phrase dually registered or dual registered, if you see anything that says…

Matt Mulcock:
Anything with insurance.

Ryan Isaac:
Insurance, that’s a red flag. I mean, our website says insurance, but we just, we consult on it, but we don’t transact a dime, we don’t get paid for it.

Matt Mulcock:
None of us are registered with insurance.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re not registered insurance agents.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re not brokers.

Ryan Isaac:
No one kicks us back. Anything that’s around like a broker dealer or the word broker or commissions. Those are just words that you can look for on someone’s website. And if you see them just move on. Number two reason you should fire your financial advisor. They dismiss your input.

Amanda Bateman:
I love this one.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, okay. Amanda, take that. Why do you love this one?

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. So this goes back to that consult I was telling you guys about that I just had this week where they were saying, We… The specific example was having cash on hand. They felt it was really important for them to have liquidity, but their current advisor was saying, No, you need to invest this. You need to put this money in the market. You need to do these things.

Matt Mulcock:
I need my big Christmas gifts from my wife this year.

Amanda Bateman:
You need more insurance. Why do I need more insurance? So yeah, I just love that when we’re meeting with our clients, when we’re meeting with prospective clients, we’re really clear upfront that we’re not the boss of their money. They are. So we’re here as a guide to make sure they know what they need to know to make the decisions that they want to make to reach what their goals are. If they don’t know what their goals are, we help guide them to what those are. But we do that through asking them questions, figuring out what is it that they want to accomplish? What do they want to do? Everything that we do for our clients is based on…

Ryan Isaac:
What they want.

Amanda Bateman:
Their input and what they want. I don’t have a single pair, two clients that things look exactly the same. Every single person is different. Their goals are different. Their situation is different. Their practice is different. So I can’t imagine just going with a cookie cutter plan. Hey, this is the plan for dentist. This is what we’re going to do.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s clearly whole life. I mean, come on, be your own bank.

Ryan Isaac:
This morning. So we’re in town as a team. It’s end of the year right now. And I was asking everyone this morning, we’re sitting in our group of advisors and there’s no way to measure this. I really wish there was, but I asked everybody, “How often do you tell people not to invest money in their accounts?”

Amanda Bateman:
Oh my gosh.

Ryan Isaac:
And all of us were like, Oh, all the time, like weekly.

Amanda Bateman:
So often, at least.

Matt Mulcock:
It happens all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
For all kinds of reasons.

Amanda Bateman:
Lots.

Ryan Isaac:
Like, yeah, you need more liquidity in your business. You need a bigger personal emergency fund.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re expanding, you’re adding a chair.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re expanding. You have uncertainty come up. You have big purchases that you don’t know exactly how much you’re going to need.

Amanda Bateman:
There’s a new baby coming.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re adding an associate early next year.

Ryan Isaac:
You got a baby coming on the way. Like we tell or you lose sleep at night from not paying down your debt. So you need to put it somewhere else. Like we tell people not to invest their money in the accounts that we manage and get paid to manage all the time. I think in the dental industry, that’s the way it works. Like I remember lots of conversations with my dentist where they’re asking me like what I value in my oral health. Like, do you want longevity? Do you want to keep your costs low? What’s the value? Let’s attach those to some goals about your dental work and then we can implement some strategies. Our industry was built on the reverse. Our industry was built on companies coming up with strategies that made money and then…

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, shoving them down people’s throats.

Ryan Isaac:
And then reverse engineering how to make people want them when they don’t, or need them when they don’t. And so that like path of values and goals to strategy is what should, how it should flow. And Amanda, what you’re saying is like, we don’t know what their… We can’t tell you what your values are or your goals are. Those are yours. And we are not gatekeepers. We’re not here to tell anybody. No. We can give pushback and feedback. But we’re here to give context.

Amanda Bateman:
Context is key. That’s what we do.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We want people to make informed decisions when they make a decision. If you pay down a debt or you invest or you grow your business or you just hold cash or you spend it and you buy a boat, like whatever. We just want you to know that you made that decision knowing all of the possible outcomes. And usually you can’t do that when you’re having a conversation with your business partner or your spouse or the insurance agent.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. No.

Ryan Isaac:
Or the real estate agent or the broker or lender. Like they have a job to do. You just need… We were talking about this this morning too. We play a role in people’s lives and this is what a good financial advisor do. Where we might be… A good financial advisor might be the only informed person that doesn’t have an agenda if they’re a fiduciary that you can just talk through your decision making with. And that’s where the best decision making, that’s where you’ll feel most confident in the outcomes of your decisions ’cause if you knew you made your decision with as much information as possible the regret will be shrinked shrunked, shrinked.

Matt Mulcock:
Shrunked.

Ryan Isaac:
Shrunked.

Matt Mulcock:
Shrunked.

Ryan Isaac:
Shrunked.

Amanda Bateman:
Matt, what was it your client said.

Ryan Isaac:
Shrinked.

Amanda Bateman:
Recently about we are here to lend an ear and provide sound advice.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
That was the line too.

Matt Mulcock:
Shout out.

Amanda Bateman:
We loved that line.

Matt Mulcock:
Can I…

Ryan Isaac:
MB, MB.

Matt Mulcock:
I’ve told her that I want to shout her name before then.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Then she won’t care.

Matt Mulcock:
She won’t care. Do I have to give them both their full names.

Amanda Bateman:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Do I do this?

Ryan Isaac:
Just go first names.

Matt Mulcock:
Randy and Marnet. You know who you are.

Ryan Isaac:
Randy, Marnet. You know who you are.

Matt Mulcock:
You Know who you are. Randy and Marnet. Yeah, they’re amazing. Yes. They just submitted because now we can start taking testimonials and they were gracious enough to provide one and Yeah, she mentioned that the theme of the ones we’ve received so far were just like that peace of mind. And like you said, the line that caught all of us when we read it out loud to everyone was just this idea of having someone there to lend a listening ear I think is what she said.

Ryan Isaac:
No, what was the line? You just said it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, what was it.

Amanda Bateman:
I’ve already forgotten. You put me on the spot, I think she said, Lend an ear… A listening ear…

Matt Mulcock:
For sound advice.

Amanda Bateman:
She said listening ear for sound advice.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s amazing.

Ryan Isaac:
Just poetic.

Matt Mulcock:
It was very poetic.

Amanda Bateman:
We loved it.

Ryan Isaac:
Marnet. That was poetic.

Amanda Bateman:
All the advisors loved it.

Ryan Isaac:
It Was incredible.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s gonna make a t-shirt. It’s gonna do something.

Matt Mulcock:
So yeah. My thing on this and I’m with Amanda. This one is probably my favorite, one of my favorites of the, there’s five. It’s one of my favorites of this list.

Amanda Bateman:
I love all of them.

Ryan Isaac:
Number three’s actually my favorite.

Matt Mulcock:
But I just think of number two. To me this is pretty simple. They just missed your input. This to me is an advisor that just completely misunderstands their role in your life. And is approaching it from this. I mean either if we’re saying it’s a, to me this could be one of two things. Either it is a place of malice, like literally they’re just trying to sell you a product. But I actually don’t think, I’m gonna say, I don’t think most advisors are like that.

Ryan Isaac:
I’d agree with that. I think it’s bad business models, not bad people.

Matt Mulcock:
Bad incentives, bad business models. I actually think for the most part, advisors that are selling commission based product could say…

Ryan Isaac:
They want to.

Matt Mulcock:
I think they’re thinking they’re doing right by their client. I actually think this one, when they’re not accepting your input, it actually comes more from a place of they’re just giving you more like the spreadsheet answer.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, totally.

Matt Mulcock:
Like, no, no, no, you have to do this ’cause this is the way to do it. It’s almost like…

Amanda Bateman:
It makes sense this way financially.

Matt Mulcock:
It makes sense from a spreadsheet answer. They’re missing the whole second part of this. And I’d even say it’s more than like a half. It’s like you don’t live in a spreadsheet. It’s what you’re saying Ryan. It’s like we have to understand your priorities, your values, what do you want out of this? And it might be paying down your debt faster. Even though the spreadsheet doesn’t tell us that’s the optimal answer. But to me, this is a lot of times an advisor that either doesn’t have the experience or maybe the right mindset to be like you’re the CEO of your money, like you make the decisions. My job is very straightforward. It’s to give you all the information and guide you through this and like you said, help you understand the trade offs. But I’m not here to be like the person telling you what to do.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s not my life.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s not my job. That’s your job.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I was gonna add to that too, depending who the person works for, there’s also incredible amounts of pressure. Like they’re going according to a spreadsheet and what like the spreadsheet says. But they’re also going according to what the higher ups in the company have said. You have to sell. I mean, I agree with you Matt. I don’t think most people in this industry are bad. I think most people get in this industry ’cause they genuinely want to help people. But there’s a lot of really crappy business models that turn well-intentioned people into bad sales people. They’re not advisors anymore. And I don’t think people… I don’t think consumers realize the heavy amounts of pressure on financial professionals in this industry who work for companies who sell products for commissions. They go to meetings like weekly or multiple times a week.

Matt Mulcock:
I lived this.

Ryan Isaac:
You did… Okay. So you can attest to this. It’s weekly, it’s monthly.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m a pretty good guy.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s quarterly. It’s giant annual events where the people who are just pushing the margins are coming to everyone and being like, Look, at the end of the day here’s what your clients need in their portfolio. I don’t care how you arrived at this point. They’re buying this mutual fund, this insurance policy, this annuity, because that’s what we are doing. And then they craft stories around it on why it’s the best. And those people leave those meetings with incentives, bonus packages, vacation plans, their job on the line.

Amanda Bateman:
And words to say.

Ryan Isaac:
Words to… They leave with scripts. And like the pressure on them is enormous. And that just translates, it gets passed down to the clients. And I don’t think most consumers in our industry are aware of that dynamic of the financial people they’re working with.

Matt Mulcock:
Never underestimate the power of… To your point, that story you’re telling yourself.

Ryan Isaac:
That pressure.

Matt Mulcock:
Or they’re telling you, and then the pressure of your job.

Ryan Isaac:
That translates to what happens with a client. It translates.

Matt Mulcock:
Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t think people are aware of just how prevalent that is. And that goes back to the fiduciary and suitability thing and how the industry splits up.

Matt Mulcock:
Guys we’re on two, we gotta.

Ryan Isaac:
So this is how every podcast goes.

Matt Mulcock:
Every time. I just love talking to you guys.

Ryan Isaac:
I do too. It’s great.

Matt Mulcock:
I love the panels too.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s so fun.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s fun.

Ryan Isaac:
I wanna do number three ’cause I really, really love this subject and I think that…

Matt Mulcock:
This is so good.

Ryan Isaac:
I think we knocked this out of the park at Dentist Advisors. Although I’m sure that there would be people saying, “I don’t agree with that,” which I think is totally fine. Number three.

Matt Mulcock:
Do you think who would say they don’t agree with this?

Ryan Isaac:
I think that there would be clients who say, “I don’t think you knocked this out of the park.”

Matt Mulcock:
Oh got it, got it.

Ryan Isaac:
And I’m gonna explain why I said that. Number three reason to fire a financial advisor is They’re difficult to reach. Here’s why I’m saying I really love this one. Our company was built, Matt and Amanda, you can probably both speak to this. In the industry in order to make a good living and as an advisor, how many accounts on average does the average advisor need to have under their management? Okay. Amanda from Vanguard.

Amanda Bateman:
Well, from Vanguard, you’d have to have as an advisor the expectation was for me to have at least 250.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Households.

Amanda Bateman:
Households.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I had 750 households in my book at Fidelity, 750.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, mine was ultra high net worth and high net worth. So those books were smaller.

Matt Mulcock:
She’s flexing on me?

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah. Dude that was a flex.

Matt Mulcock:
She’s a flexer. She’s like, oh, that’s cute Matt.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s cool.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. I managed over 2 billion.

Ryan Isaac:
She’s like 250.

Amanda Bateman:
That was before.

Ryan Isaac:
And I just made a humor.

Amanda Bateman:
Don’t worry everybody.

Matt Mulcock:
You know billion with a B. Ever heard of it?

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. The price.

Ryan Isaac:
So 250.

Matt Mulcock:
I had two of them.

Ryan Isaac:
So 250 households for you, 750 households.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I managed 2.1 billion.

Amanda Bateman:
Oh, did you?

Ryan Isaac:
No, I have no idea.

Amanda Bateman:
Well, I don’t manage that now. I’d like the record to stand that Matt and Ryan are way ahead of me.

Matt Mulcock:
We don’t have 2 billion dollars in our management. I can tell you that.

Ryan Isaac:
So the beginning of this company was built on that being a flaw, that any advisor with even 200, let alone 750. And this is, I mean, this is my opinion. Any CPAs out there, please give me feedback. This is also my opinion on the flaw in trying to make a good living as a CPA. You have to file so many tax returns that inevitably people are gonna be like, you never talked to me. And you’re gonna be like, Well, yeah. Do you know how many tax returns I have to file? It’s insane.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s a quantity game.

Amanda Bateman:
That was one of my motivations in coming to Dentist Advisors, was, there have been studies done that you can only know like a 100 to 150 people.

Ryan Isaac:
There you go. Yeah.

Amanda Bateman:
And so when I was vetting you guys and you were vetting me…

Ryan Isaac:
Dude, was that conscious? That was on your mind?

Amanda Bateman:
And you’re truly vetting. That was one of the big motivations for me is I really want to know my clients.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, you and I talked about that a lot.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. It’s important to me to actually deliver value and to, when I hear the client’s name, I wanna know what is their spouse’s name, which practice is it that they own? How many kids do they have? What are their goals this year? I want that to be able to come to mind, and so here I get to have that.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s totally that.

Amanda Bateman:
And I just… Going back to like having the pressure and things coming from the top down. That is not happening here. I…

Matt Mulcock:
Not yet, just wait.

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
We’ll talk after this.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, yeah. You don’t scare me anymore.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that’s a really good point. Yeah, I think that we came to that conclusion that… And it’s still probably up for debate whether it’s 110 or 130 but it’s in there.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, and it’s just so important and that was… Getting back to that same consult, like that consult I had met every one of these things was a problem they were having with her current advisor. And I said, “Okay, well, I really promise I’m not trying to just give you answers that you wanna know, but if you wanna reach me you have my cell phone number.”

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. I’m glad you said that.

Amanda Bateman:
“You can text and call me. You can book time on my calendar anytime that it works for you. You can email me. Any of those ways are great ways to reach me. And I want you to reach out to me the way that works best for you. And then I’ll respond. I will communicate to you in the way that works for you.” So some of my clients like texting, some of them never text, some of them… Actually, I think like no one has ever called me.

Ryan Isaac:
Like directly? Yeah… That’s, rare.

Amanda Bateman:
No, it’s always an appointment.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh really. I’m still…

Ryan Isaac:
You have callers?

Matt Mulcock:
All the time.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
So I’m glad you’re bringing this up, Amanda, because I didn’t wanna speak for everyone. But I think that it’s probably common across the board. It is rare in our industry that a client will have your cell phone.

Amanda Bateman:
Oh so rare.

Ryan Isaac:
But we have worked with cell phone numbers. But like, will you guys answer text after hours? Have you? Not, let’s just have you?

Amanda Bateman:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
Have you answered a text on vacation?

Amanda Bateman:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
On a weekend?

Matt Mulcock:
I’ve done phone calls on vacation.

Amanda Bateman:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Much to my wife’s chagrin. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. So what Amanda is saying and I’m glad you’re saying this and it’s not just me speaking for everybody. Our clients and I… They like you said, email, text, phone call, an open calendar. I mean, do you care how many times people schedule with you?

Amanda Bateman:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
No.

Amanda Bateman:
I’ve never had anybody abuse it. So…

Ryan Isaac:
I mean, eventually these are busy people. Dentists are busy with their own lives. So no one… I have some people who during certain periods of their life will schedule monthly calls ’cause there’s so much going on.

Matt Mulcock:
Easy. Easy.

Ryan Isaac:
Now, here’s what I was saying earlier. I do have people that are so busy, the very successful, very busy people that it’s hard to connect, so you’ll email and say, “Here’s my calendar. Here’s my calendar. Schedule, schedule,” or you’ll text. And I understand people can be busy. But what I’m proud of at Dentist Advisor’s that I know is very different and you guys are telling the same story. It’s very different in the industry. We have a much smaller client number per advisor and our clients are welcome to communicate with us as frequently as much and over any way that they want. Text, call, zoom video, emails, whatever.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
‘Cause I think the foundation of all that like it’s pretty straightforward. This to me is like the foundational piece…

Ryan Isaac:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Of our relationship.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, this is what I was referencing earlier about studies. Studies show that people leave it’s bigger study professional relationships, CPAs, consultants, financial advisors. The number one reason is lack of communication.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s the number one reason people leave an advisor. Is lack of communication.

Amanda Bateman:
I think more of my clients would complain about hearing from me more than they want to.

Matt Mulcock:
Sometimes I get that yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, sometimes they’ll say like, Yeah, I see a lot of emails. Sometimes I just get lost in email. Like, yeah, I mean, maybe we overcommunicate, but I’d rather err on that side anyway.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, and to your point of, Amanda, of clients who… Because we only work with so many per advisor you get to know the…

Ryan Isaac:
Style.

Matt Mulcock:
The little quirks of different…

Amanda Bateman:
Their personality.

Matt Mulcock:
Different clients. So I have a client, one of my biggest, just as far as like his net worth. He doesn’t answer emails really. He doesn’t follow up on reports that we send him.

Ryan Isaac:
I have a lot of those.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. He doesn’t care. He’s told me this probably a year and a half ago ’cause he calls me out of the blue all the time. He’ll just call me Friday afternoon. Be like, “Hey can we chat?”

Amanda Bateman:
I think I know who you’re talking about. I think I have talked to him.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I think you do. He’s amazing. I love this guy.

Amanda Bateman:
So nice. One of the best.

Matt Mulcock:
But he’ll just call me or randomly shoot me in text. Like, “Hey, can you talk?” And he told me about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago. He goes, “Matt, all I really care about and the reason I pay you guys the way I pay you is because I want you answer my call whenever I call you.” That’s all he wants.

Ryan Isaac:
And you do.

Matt Mulcock:
And I do.

Amanda Bateman:
A good point to make here too is how often do you have something super urgent? A lot of what we do is…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it’s not.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s proactive. It doesn’t have to be reactive. So part of what makes us so available in those urgent situations is because they’re truly urgent.

Ryan Isaac:
They are. Yeah.

Amanda Bateman:
We’re setting you up so that you don’t have urgent situations or things that have to happen very quickly. But when something’s happening in your practice, or there’s a closing or there’s something happening that needs to have attention, we’re here to give you that attention, and make sure you have it. So I, you know…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a good point.

Amanda Bateman:
I don’t want people to think there are a lot of fires all the time that we’re putting out.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s weird how all of our clients have disasters, whatnot.

Ryan Isaac:
No, but that’s such a good point.

Amanda Bateman:
No, I don’t think we’re saying that, but I think that’s part of… I think all of us as advisors do a really good job of setting expectations and helping our clients to be proactive to know where they stand to be able to make decisions that they need to. That’s the point. That’s the reason that we’re here. So when our clients need us, we’re showing up for them.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I love that. And I think we do a really… I think we can always improve. And it does take time to learn.

Matt Mulcock:
Speak for yourself.

Ryan Isaac:
And it does to your point.

Amanda Bateman:
No, that’s perfect.

Ryan Isaac:
It does take time to learn like communication preferences of people, to dial that in, to see what people really, like the cadence they wanna get into. But I think we do well on that. Number five.

Amanda Bateman:
Four.

Matt Mulcock:
Four.

Ryan Isaac:
What?

Matt Mulcock:
We got to power through.

Ryan Isaac:
Are you serious?

Matt Mulcock:
We’re on four.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh my gosh. Okay.

Amanda Bateman:
So this one came up in that same consult you guys.

Ryan Isaac:
All right. Read us number four, Amanda.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s like a model consult.

Ryan Isaac:
What’s number four?

Amanda Bateman:
They don’t give you the details.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah. So the specific situation or conversation I was having, they were saying, they asked me a question about 401k specifically. And they said, “We’re having a meeting to talk about our 401k with our advisor, and I don’t think that they’ll be able to explain the cost to us. Do you guys handle 401k? Like, what’s that like?” And I said, Well, yeah, we have a couple different providers we work with. We’re also happy to work with whoever you work with. Going back to, we’re not getting kickbacks. We’re here to do what’s best for you. And so I brought up our provider. Am I allowed to say who we use?

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Yeah, right now. Just right now.

Amanda Bateman:
401GO.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Amanda Bateman:
So I was like, Yeah, we use 401GO. Here’s their website. It’s very transparent. Here’s where you can go and look at the pricing. We’re looking at this much a month. How many participants do you have? Just did quick calculation on the call, pulled up, shared my screen, showed them the math I was doing. Made it clear. I don’t do math in my head. Not for anybody. So…

Matt Mulcock:
It’s not you. It’s not you. It’s me.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s just not who I am. So I was able to give them a rough estimate on what their costs for their 401k would be. And they were like, “I don’t expect to get this level of detail and answer in the meeting that we’re going to this week.” And they just said, “The fact that you were able to explain that to me in the way that you did just shows the difference.” And look, we had talked for like 20 minutes at that point. They don’t know me, but it was just an example of we’re here to educate our clients. We’re here to make sure they understand the why behind what they’re doing and the advice that we’re giving. So if my client ever walks away from a conversation that we’ve had and they don’t understand why, then I have failed in my role as their advisor, because I want them to feel good about it. There should never be this like, weird feeling of like, something’s not sitting right.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Like, I don’t get it.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I’ll even say a step before they become a client. If they don’t walk away from a consultation fully educated, or at least feeling comfortable they may not hire us, great. But at least they walked away feeling like we approached it from a stance… Like you’re saying a stance of education and transparency and being like, here’s all the cards. I think that is step number one, before they even become a client if they ever do.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Again, I don’t wanna speak for everyone. But I think we probably all feel the same.

Amanda Bateman:
You do. Just admit it.

Ryan Isaac:
I do.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s like your favorite thing is to speak for everyone.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t wanna speak for everyone, but…

Matt Mulcock:
But I’m going to. It’s like saying no offense.

Ryan Isaac:
No offense.

Matt Mulcock:
No offense but I’m about to say something very offensive.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re an idiot.

Amanda Bateman:
No offense, but you look the same as when you tried.

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I’m going to go ahead and speak for everyone. Here we go.

Ryan Isaac:
I think that if any client listening reached out to their advisor and asked, “Hey, can you explain, even if it’s the smallest thing, will you explain to me like what a Roth IRA is? Why it’s different than the regular one? I don’t get it. I have both and I still don’t understand why I have both. Or can you tell me why this mutual fund is in my portfolio? Or why I have this insurance?” I think all of us are so excited to be able to teach stuff constantly. That’s why this whole podcast started. This podcast did not start as a way that we thought we’d market for new relationships. We did not think that was gonna work at all. Glad it did. But this whole thing started just so we could teach people stuff, like to as many people as we can. So I would just say, if you’re listening to this, you’re a client of Dentist Advisors, if you ever have questions about these things… What Amanda described is the way we all feel. That’s the philosophy that we’ve found team members with. It’s like, do you want to teach people stuff or sell people stuff? And we’ve hired teachers. I love when clients will call and just be like, “Hey, I know we’ve talked about this before, but can you explain it to me again?” I love that. And I think this point, which we’re on number four, goes hand in hand with number three, which is like having a lot of communication with your advisor.

Ryan Isaac:
If you have a chance to talk to your advisor a lot, eventually you will understand a lot of the process. And I’ll say, sometimes I feel like I even want to over teach people. There’s kind of a lot of times where…

Matt Mulcock:
I get accused of that sometimes.

Amanda Bateman:
I do too.

Ryan Isaac:
Or they’re like, “Hey, Ryan, that’s fine. I got it. I got it.”

Matt Mulcock:
Too much detail.

Amanda Bateman:
I always say, I’m so sorry, I know that was a really long answer. And I blame how much caffeine I’ve had that day when really it’s just my personality.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re just like totally nerdy. You’re like, I got more charts for you. Let’s dive into these things. All right.

Amanda Bateman:
Don’t even get us started on Robbie.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh my God, Robbie’s the best.

Ryan Isaac:
I can’t wait to have that. Amanda.

Amanda Bateman:
Robbie’s voice gets louder the more he talks about a topic.

Ryan Isaac:
He gets excited.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s so excited. I love it.

Amanda Bateman:
The energy is just contagious.

Matt Mulcock:
I know.

Ryan Isaac:
Matt, hit us with number five.

Matt Mulcock:
The last one, number five, They don’t take the time to get to know you. We talked about it. And Amanda you’ve referenced this. I think this is huge. And like we were saying, when I’ve got 750 people in my book, you’ve got 250 of ultra high net worth.

Amanda Bateman:
And high net worth.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Yeah. No, when you have that many people and you’re pushing products you’re not incentivized to get to know them. Right? You’re not…

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t have time to get to know anybody.

Matt Mulcock:
You don’t have time. You don’t have…

Ryan Isaac:
All this goes back to number three. Hold on. I’m kind of actually, this is kind of nerdy.

Amanda Bateman:
It does go back to number three.

Matt Mulcock:
Is three your favorite one?

Ryan Isaac:
I’m getting nerdy now. ‘Cause let’s look at this. Well, fiduciary is probably a different story, but maybe not because a part of being a fiduciary is doing what’s in your best interest and you can’t do anything in anyone’s best interest unless you spend enough time to know them. Number two they dismiss your input. That’d be a characteristic of someone who doesn’t have enough time to spend with you. They don’t give you the details and they don’t take time to get to know you. This is all about spending time with, humans spending time with humans. That’s the moral of the whole story.

Matt Mulcock:
People helping people.

Ryan Isaac:
People helping people.

Amanda Bateman:
I wish I could sing. I can’t so I’ll spare you all.

Ryan Isaac:
You go for it. Let’s do it.

Matt Mulcock:
Give it a shot.

Amanda Bateman:
No.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay.

Ryan Isaac: People helping people.

Amanda Bateman:
That’ll be for a different podcast.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, Getting to know you. I mean, we’re humans too, believe it or not. Matt’s a human.

Matt Mulcock:
We are people too.

Ryan Isaac:
Advisors are people too. The things our clients go through are, they’re just as relatable to us as well. Like we have families, we have hobbies, we have friends, we have goals in life, we have passions outside of work. Sometimes…

Matt Mulcock:
We struggle with money decisions.

Ryan Isaac:
We struggle with money decisions. We make bad money decisions. We do human things with money. We’re normal people with normal lives. And it’s actually one of the most beautiful parts about being an advisor is to get to know the reasons why people are doing stuff. Why are you building another location? Why do you want to pay off your debt so fast? Why do you want to have that much liquidity? Why do you want real estate? Why behind this stuff? To get to know the people behind this, That tells more of the story and it makes the decision making so much easier. When you know why people are operating as much as you can behind the scenes then the financial decisions are just kind of like… It just makes it so much easier in context to understand why they’re doing things.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, so, one of… I mean our clients are going to know this, but prospective clients, people just listening to the podcast who haven’t reached out to us yet, won’t know that…

Matt Mulcock:
Yet.

Amanda Bateman:
When it’s…

Ryan Isaac:
But will.

Amanda Bateman:
They will.

Ryan Isaac:
After this.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s inevitable. So when you’re first beginning to work with us and we’re first starting a relationship we don’t start with numbers. We don’t start with the facts of where you are right now. What we start with…

Matt Mulcock:
Amanda doesn’t even like numbers.

Amanda Bateman:
I love numbers.

Matt Mulcock:
She’s already said…

Ryan Isaac:
She does.

Amanda Bateman:
I’m just not good at them.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m just kidding.

Ryan Isaac:
I think we’re all number nerds here.

Amanda Bateman:
I love spreadsheets and I love charts, but back to my point. We spend an hour, 45 minutes an hour, our very first call after someone becomes a client is we have the discovery call. And that’s where we’re talking about what is your background with money? What are your attitudes toward debt? What are some maybe mistakes you’ve made in the past that we want to not repeat? What are your expectations of me as an advisor? Why are you hiring me? What is it that you want me to make sure I’m helping you do? That answer is different every single time.

Ryan Isaac:
Every time.

Amanda Bateman:
It surprises me every single time. I’ll even sometimes try to predict what I think they’re going to say.

Ryan Isaac:
Like assume.

Amanda Bateman:
Not assume because…

Ryan Isaac:
It makes you know what assuming does.

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, I do. So…

Matt Mulcock:
I totally do.

Amanda Bateman:
I’ve done that so much in my life. So I don’t do that now, but I can’t predict it. It’s like, you think you know based on certain answers or we’ve had conversations leading up to this call, but this call is specific and it’s special and I consider it like the coffee date of meetings…

Ryan Isaac:
That’s cool.

Amanda Bateman:
With my clients, but I don’t want to call it a coffee date ‘ cause I don’t want to cross some weird line and then to be like, wait, what?

Ryan Isaac:
We went on a coffee date.

Amanda Bateman:
What did I sign up for?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s such a good point. I mean, you just find your own human story interacting with your clients. And the things I do in my own life that are really, really meaningful outside of money, they drive the way I think about work and money and saving and spending and debt and all that kind of stuff. And it is, It’s really valuable and it’s really fulfilling to just get to know that behind the scenes story, what really drives somebody, so. It’s almost like money therapy in a way.

Amanda Bateman:
It is.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally is.

Ryan Isaac:
Which is a whole area of study now, isn’t it? It’s like a whole field of professional…

Amanda Bateman:
Yeah, there’s a whole financial therapy association.

Ryan Isaac:
Financial therapy.

Amanda Bateman:
I went to their conference last year and I’m considering pursuing that a little bit more.

Ryan Isaac:
You should.

Amanda Bateman:
I just love it. Just the why and the behaviors.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, because that tells the story. Well, one question you might be wondering is why did this go so long? But that’s because this conversation was fantastic. So, Amanda, thanks for joining us on… This is your first time on the podcast. First of many to come.

Matt Mulcock:
Why did this go so long? Amanda, tell us.

Ryan Isaac:
No, it’s ’cause Ryan’s here.

Amanda Bateman:
It’s because of me.

Ryan Isaac:
Ryan never stops talking.

Matt Mulcock:
We’ve never had Amanda on the show before and this went extra long. I wonder what it was.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s me. I’m the Taylor Swift song. It’s me. I’m the problem. It’s me. 100%.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s us.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t stop talking. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Mattie, as always and to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. If you have any questions, dentistadvisors.com. Guarantee we got the answer there.

Matt Mulcock:
Guarantee you can say that.

Ryan Isaac:
We have an answer there. I guarantee we have an answer at dentistadvisors.com.

Amanda Bateman:
On our website.

Matt Mulcock:
It may not be a good one.

Ryan Isaac:
It may not be to the question you’re asking.

Matt Mulcock:
We guarantee there’ll be an answer.

Ryan Isaac:
After seven years of a podcast and all the articles, e-Guides and videos, there has to be like a thousand plus hours of free content on there. Of every subject you’ve probably ever thought of and if a new one comes up we’ll cover it in another episode. You guys, thanks for being here.

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Everyone, thanks for joining us.

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks, Amanda.

Ryan Isaac:
We’ll catch you next time on another episode on The Dentist Money Show. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Advisors