Margaret Hartigan, CEO of Marstone; Shruti Joshi, COO of Facet Wealth.
Transcription:
Justin L. Mack: (00:07)
Thank you everyone. It's kind of weird hearing my own voice. Bring me up to the stage, but talking to myself is not a new thing. So I'm kind of used to it. It's fine. And I want to thank everyone for joining us on this session, focused on the digital advisor and readying for the evolution of financial planning and honored to have two amazing panelists. Joining me this morning to start off day two with a bank. I am joined right here by, Margaret Hardigan, CEO of Marstone and Trupti Joshi COO of Facet Wealth, quick round of applause for our panelists this morning.
Margaret Hardigan: (00:37)
Thank you.
Justin L. Mack: (00:38)
As I'm sure you are all aware an extremely important topic, increasingly wealth management is becoming a technology business, whether you know it or not, and the digital advisor is essentially the advisor. Now there's no one who's expecting their advisor to be, kind of IL anymore. Digital is required and as far as making things easier for the person who is managing those finances and essentially an individual's entire life, we know that it's not just managing their money anymore. The digital advisor is the only one who's apt to handle all of the things that might come up and the fact that things can change instantly and their clients are gonna want answers just as quickly as the situation changes. So we're gonna jump right in and I leave some room for Q and A at the end. I really just wanna start with the general question about the digital advisor, how much things have changed, and I'll have everyone start by just saying a little bit about their individual organizations, the work that they do and how it relates to the transformation we're seeing in the industry. So, first Margaret, if you could talk a little bit about the work you're doing and, how it relates to this topic over at Mar stone.
Margaret Hardigan: (01:41)
Excellent. Well, first of all, thank you, Justin. Thank you everyone for being here. I'm Margaret Hardigan, I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Marstone. Marstone's a digital wealth and financial planning platform born out of my experience of having been a financial advisor for 12 years, living through the.com crash and then the financial crisis of 2008. It was those moments that sort of inspired me to create a platform that met, the needs of all three stakeholders, the retail client, the financial advisor, and the institution. So it was really clear to me, when I first saw money start moving across generations, which happened after Obama got elected. People thought he might change the tax code and we started seeing people start moving money. I thought, wow, of a successful business by how am I gonna get my arms around the next generation and really retain those assets and grow them. So we are plumbed into a number of different custodians core banking solutions and are pretty agnostic about the other vendors you work with. So that's a bit about Marstone.
Justin L. Mack: (02:40)
All right. Thank you so much, Trupti, a little bit about the work fast and wealth is doing and how it empowers the digital advisor.
Trupti Joshi: (02:45)
Great. I'm Trupti Joshi. I'm the COO of Facet Wealth, and I think we're really, we've been and are leading the charge on bringing this digital advisor to market. We are subscription based service focused on the mass affluent consumer, and much of our work is not just a commitment and a promise of focusing on a consumer's full financial life, but we really actually do deliver that. In addition to that, you know, just the subscription model, doesn't create a conflict as it relates to, that AUM dynamic. So that's very, very differentiated for us and we have a very, very transparent simplified model. So it's, pretty disruptive in the space and for us, it's all about that dedicated CFP combined with best in class technology and understanding the role that each plays in delivering a client experience. That's really something that the marketplace hasn't seen. So we've been at it for a while and we think that the digital advisors is here it's happened.
Justin L. Mack: (03:44)
Absolutely, a big fan of disruption. So again, the work that's being done here really aiding in that and wanted to start just by kind of what you do touch. You both touched on is how this technology, how the digital advisor could kind of add to their value proposition by, in leveraging or employing the right technology, the right tools, and really making themselves, despite having, you know, walls of different screens, between themselves and the end client are actually able to be a little bit more present because of the tools they have in their arsenals. So really wanted to kick off things, Margaret, of course, with your experience as an advisor and kind of moving forward a little bit about. How advisors can up their value proposition with the right tech tools and kind of how to cut through the noise? Because the other thing about the digital advisor is that the end client can find all of them. You pick up your phone, you're a first time person looking for planning, or maybe looking for a new planner. You've got a million options right in front of you. So being able to, again, add to your value proposition, kind of important for standing out and actually being able to meet, keep, retain, and build relationships long term with those clients. So Margaret, how does the digital advisor up their value and stand out in a very crowded crowd?
Margaret Hardigan: (04:53)
Well, what's, you know, clients come to work with you because of you. They really buy into your brand proposition. I mean that's, I truly believe that having been a financial advisor, we never wanted to disintermediate the advisor from their client, but we realized all advisors naturally plateau at some point, especially if it's man on man combat. So we're in a fee compressed world. It's only getting worse. We're now in a pretty difficult market environment and you have to offer a number of ancillary services, not just, your advice on the portfolios. when people are in the wealth creation part of life, they're trying to save for their families, provide opportunities to go to school long term care, things of that nature. But once someone has accomplished a lot of wealth, the next thing that they worry about is if something happens to me, will my spouse or partner know where everything is and will my potentially knucklehead kids do the right thing with the money.
Margaret Hardigan: (05:48)
A lot of people are willing to pay for an advisor as that trusted advisor, who is really the guardian and steward over the family assets and liabilities. A lot of family members don't have the financial fluency of speaking about investments in markets or correlations. And I think a really great financial planning tool helps align the family, help align the values and help everyone understand the pros and cons of different decisions. The other thing that's great about a wonderful planning tool is you'll actually find a bunch of assets that you didn't know your clients had because we all know that our clients sort of hide money from us. So, I think a very strong planning tool is really a great, reading advice platform. You want a tool though, that talks to all of your other vendors, like whether it's your CRM, your performance engineer, custodian, and what not, and you want it to be flexible because when you're an independent advisor, as you guys know, we used to rail about the technology at Merrill.
Margaret Hardigan: (06:45)
But we didn't understand the underneath that like unified, gooey or desktop where all the sins of previous like technology, decisions when you become an independent, you're overwhelmed by all of the choice and you don't have the time or the dollars to actually figure out what is gonna work with what? and so, but anyways, I think it's a huge retention tool and I think it enables you to expand your natural footprint from being a local provider, to like a regional, to a national, especially now that people have moved all over the country.
Justin L. Mack: (07:14)
Trupti, same question to you when you're thinking about how we can empower and support the digital advisor. Cause like you said, digital advisors here. Tell me a little bit about how tech plays such a huge role in that in helping that value and how you guys are working to make sure that they keep that value high.
Trupti Joshi: (07:29)
Yeah. So, you know, for us, we have, about a hundred CFPs on staff and it's really all about making their jobs as easy as possible to serve the client and provide a best in class client experience in every touchpoint. To us, that's a combination of not just the platforms that we build and use, but it's also the information and data as it pertains to the client and the marriage of those two things really allows us to provide a different level of service. So rather than having five different systems that a planner has to log into to create a complete picture of a client, give them one system, give them one tool where all of that information that allows them to actually string together a complete understanding of how to best provide service is something that's differentiated actually. If you're spending time on accessing systems or you're spending time on trying to understand what's going on, that's time away from actually helping the client with what they need. So, because we think in a entire life that, you know, technology becomes essential to be able to create efficiencies and not create more work for the client as well. There's nothing worse in client experience than asking a client the same question or having a missing piece of context that allows us to provide that best experience. So for us, everything right, that client profile and those technology platforms to deliver that service model, we can't do what we do.
Justin L. Mack: (08:58)
I guess another question I had too related to, again, the ubiquitousness of technology, it's here, it's present. How much has that changed client expectations? Because now clients are expecting kind of what you said, a seamless, frictionless experience that's going to make their lives easier, not harder. When they do run into those friction points or those walls that might be, and we've done surveys that show that, "Hey, if your tech or my engagement with you now, with the way that I expect to engage with my planner, much, like I engage with my bank much. Like I engage with my health insurance, everything. I wanna be able to click a button, see what's wrong, fix it, send a message." So again, the client today far more sophisticated than maybe years ago, and there's let no resistance before there was that resistance to some tech. Now we're operating in a world where everyone's on board, which can create some unique problems. So start with you Margaret, on the question of, how has the client changed and how does that level of sophistication play into how advisors engage with those clients?
Margaret Hardigan: (09:55)
Well, I mean, we've all done holidays and graduations and what not via zoom or what not. So the expectation of there's not the inhibition around technology anymore, regardless of age and what not. So, but, the challenge, I think for all of us, whether we're a provider, offering services to an advisor or the advisor him or herself, is it really forces us to refine what we're showing the client, because we're not able to sit with them across the table and kind of skip over pages or chapters and then reference back. It's really becoming more and more design challenges of like, how do I best convey in one page, a ton of information? Then if the person wants to keep going deeper and deeper, they can. So I think it's critical. You know, employees don't come to work, including advisors, they're scattered everywhere.
Margaret Hardigan: (10:43)
The clients are scattered and you need to have these really refined tools that people can quickly access and understand where they are and what the correlations are of different investments. Also to see, are we still on track? Then, have reminders, if you can have any messaging, that's reminding people kind of like the long term view of what we set out and not to get overwhelmed by where the market is right now, a good financial plan that they look at as sort of their roadmap. They know that they have to keep investing and kind of stay the course. So I think it's a great messaging tool as well.
Justin L. Mack: (11:15)
Good question. You mean on the modern consumer and the modern investor that dance that's being done now?
Trupti Joshi: (11:21)
So we focus on the mass affluent segment. So 70 over 75% of our clients have never worked with a financial planner. What's really interesting about that is there's a bit of a mystery on what the service actually is and what they should even expect? But I think that there are some common denominators and what people are looking for, right? Just this humanness of wanting simplicity. this is such a deeply psychological topic, as much as it seems like it's about ROI and bips and returns and what not. It's actually a very deep topic when our financial planners sit down with people, it's about life. It's about their value system. It's about asking themselves hard questions about trade offs. So for us keeping that simplicity, right, making us feel very accessible, inviting, I think this is where the human plays a role with that technology.
Trupti Joshi: (12:07)
I think consumers are also looking for transparency, right? This is not a very transparent category. I mean, the jargon, the amount of sort of mystery behind what even the language means. 5294 case, the average consumer doesn't understand what a lot of that even is that it's quite threatening actually. It makes people kind of wanna pull away from the discussion. So creating transparency and simplicity are so key and then ultimately it's about impact, right? Clients have to see an impact. If you think about the power of digital and combine with of course, great client data in being able to deliver those things, I think that's where you really get that type of stickiness where people then start understanding like, wow, this is life changing. And so for us, the digital piece is important, but I think it's really just table stakes.
Trupti Joshi: (12:56)
Like we have to create these perceptions and feelings in the minds of the consumer. And we don't think you can do that as easily without digital, right. Cause that is the best way to actually create some of these, components, the simplicity, the transparency, that easy button and consumers are definitely smart. I mean, they are experiencing consumer tech in other categories and industries and they know what good client experience feels like, right? It's going to come with a magical moment early on in the journey. It's gonna come with something that feels unexpected. So for us, it's critical that we're delivering that. And we think very much in terms of that client journey and that's a little bit more consumer tech business than, you know, anything else.
Justin L. Mack: (13:36)
Absolutely. Something you touched on too, is really central to a lot of our editorial focus is just that increased need and demand for financial planning, solid fiduciary financial planning. We have the research that shows that, you know, unfortunately the number of people showing interest and first time people who wanna work with planners greatly out number the amount of planners that we have. So it's, a game of people trying to make sure that they can meet those needs when that interest is shown and do so before that person says, you know what, forget it, I'm gonna do it by myself, and I'm gonna download some app and I'll just figure it out because there is, an issue there. We would like more people to be getting good financial advice and they understand that too. And all it takes is, you know, the world to fall apart over the past couple of years for people to say, I should probably have a plan. So Margaret, wanna talk a little bit about, again, that the difficulty of trying to manage all the demand and need as an advisor and trying to keep up with that increased demand, knowing that you're still only one advisor or one advisory firm, how do you do that and how is the digital advisor more ready to do that than maybe the advisor of the past?
Margaret Hardigan: (14:39)
Well, a lot of us segment, or I'm not an advisor anymore, but when I was you segment your book, like by whatever tier of clients, so whether it's suitability of different investments or, offerings, whether they're international or domestic or what not. And again, like I said, that, my father's a financial advisor, my brother joined his practice. When I was at Merrill, you heard this kind of crude term that certain advisors sort of build their practices on the backs of others. Like meaning, like they get all these young people to work for them and what not. But one thing that I, what I realized was that the senior advisors have worked so hard. They're entrepreneurs, they've created these books of business and, and they're kind of tired, not, because they're old type thing, but like they really grinded it out.
Margaret Hardigan: (15:25)
Right. I mean, it's really hard to build a B big book of business. That's neutralized and what not. They may not be focused in part because they're thinking about the next chapter of their life. They may not be really focused on the next generation and putting kind of the muscle into it, because you basically are starting over every generation that you're talking to. So partnering good digital tools enable, their junior partners to really effectively work with the next generation in really nice manner. I think it really helps the organization scale, I think, that it also, there's more and more people that are digital natives. They don't really want to talk to an advisor, but I think a lot of people love having the trust advisor that they can call. That's why the Facet model is really interesting because there's the human being not just purely digital.
Margaret Hardigan: (16:11)
So I think, it's critical to scale these businesses. It's absolutely critical for retention. We all know that Capgemini, the numbers of the spouses leaving and the adult kids leaving and without getting your arms around these assets really early and having it personalized. So that meets the kind of the look and feel and the needs of the different people in the households. It's hard, but one challenge, I think we all have, whether it's, an actual advisor or of a firm, like one of ours is I often think the financial plan is over architected. Not everyone needs the amount of data and sort of cavity search that happens to go through a plan. I think what we have to figure out, especially in a digital first or digital advisor way, is how can we get smarter to identify what kind of client it is and what the right input, output questions to make them feel like they leveled up, and then we can keep going as they progress on the journey and we're using, you know, machine learning or AI or other behavioral patterning.
Margaret Hardigan: (17:12)
So that's where I think the big challenge is because it's not a fun experience most people want it. And then they're like, oh my God. And doing it digitally, it's hard because it can take some time if you do a really robust plan.
Justin L. Mack: (17:24)
Trupti, same question to you, is meeting that supply and demand. And again, so many first time folks who've never worked with a planner, they have no idea what to expect, and then they're here. how do you have that supply? How do you meet that need?
Trupti Joshi: (17:35)
Yeah, so, you know, we have built a model that is intended to scale as, you know, our planners can address basically, you know, up to 200 plus right. clients. So that ratio is quite a for the industry and that's purely driven by having technology. And so we think in terms of planner journeys, so that client journey that we develop proactively, we have to marry that with, okay, on the flip side of the equation, how is the technology supporting that many clients at the same time? and you know, for us, it's very much about thinking in terms of all of the various conversations, great Margaret, like it's not having all of the data, right. You don't have to have like literally every piece of information it's knowing what matters when, how it's framed and then how it's ingested and used. So as we think about the client journey around what is, you know, what is the first meeting in the first three months cover? What is the second meeting cover third meeting, how many meetings are that planners meet our clients a year, a quarterly check in? So on the planner side, we have to build rails if you will, to sup to supply them with the right tech and the right information to make that very, very efficient. There's a lot of thought tech being the orchestrator of both the client journey and the planner journey to make it easy and delight.
Justin L. Mack: (19:00)
Absolutely. Then kind of on this topic and I wanna make sure we leave some room and some time for Q & A. So we've done through, again, the importance, the value we can add, how it can actually manage the higher demand. Again, having a 200 to one ratio, that's incredible. Something that was unimaginable before these tools were actually around to be used. So advice for the folks who are getting ready and how they should prepare now, any advice for whether you are and I wanna extend the question to not just advisors, but also FinTech providers, people who are working on creating solutions to support these advisors and do all the things that we've talked about accomplishing so far. Any advice where should they start, which are getting ready, the industry's changed and the industry's already changed just any, top of mind advice for advisors or solutions providers on which you should be doing to get ready for the new world of financial planning.
Margaret Hardigan: (19:54)
Well, I think that actually market correction's are really great time to be introducing planning. I think it's a great time to be coming to market with planning tools because everyone's focused, everyone's taking another look. I think that there's always talk about fees. You know, this next generation actually does shop on fees more than previous generations, which is pretty interesting. but I think that if you provide a pretty broad suite of advice and good portfolio mix and like a good supporting team, a good plan that is holistic and also seamlessly integrated with your plaid aggregation or your investment and banking and what not, you can actually protect that fee. You know, because you're offering this bundled service, which is different than just a self-directed robo or a one and done. Like I said before, it's during this time of wealth transfer or like these, you know, scary moments in the market is when they actually want to talk to someone too, and they want that advice, they really are looking at you almost like a mini family office that they've kind of, empowered you, for their loved ones. People invest and save largely cuz of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's food, shelter, security, and then bits of aspiration, whimsy, how we complicate our lives with our cars and our mortgages. That's slightly different, but, that's what people care about. And that's why it's really lovely that there's this combination of digital and the trusted individual hire advisor.
Justin L. Mack: (21:26)
Absolutely. Trupti, same question to you. What should we start? You know, first step for someone who's like, Hey, I've got to get ready. Things have changed. I maybe haven't done enough to get ready for the change and now I'm playing catch up. Again, I'd love to hear your perspective, not just for advisors, but for the solutions providers as well. How do you get started?
Trupti Joshi: (21:42)
Yeah. So the first thing I think is really, if you, so my background is consumer tech and I think having a chance to explore different industries over time, I've noticed that so much of this is psychology, right? How do people actually relate to the role of technology in their business and in this industry? It's interesting because it's seen in my experience as more of an enabler or an afterthought, it's not really the actual center point of how can this technology make the lives of our planners or our clients better. So I think first and foremost, it's a little bit of a psychological shift, which is really difficult because if you've done it one way for a really long time, how do you rewire your brain, to actually think about, a different way to go to market or a different way to manage.
Trupti Joshi: (22:27)
So I think step one is really recognizing what can technology do. If I put this at the center, of the way I deliver my service, how might that change the way I divide up tasks or what can technology do really well, versus what can a human or a planner do really well, right. Tech can't do certain things a human can do and vice versa. and I think the second piece of this is orienting around what is a client journey, right? What am I trying to deliver and how can, how can the ultimate delivery model change the way I think about, what I need, right? Cause sometimes it's, I've noticed in certain conversations, it's like, oh, well, you know, they're using this tech and this tech and it's kind of like, well, we should too. And it does this one thing. It's kind of thought of as solving a problem, transactionally on the side and before, you know, it, you end up with a really messy tech stack and the tech stack doesn't really work together and it's not really solving the consumer problem or the client problem. So I think the model has to be flipped, right. For starters, what's the right thing in terms of what I'm trying to do for my client. How do I think in terms of tech in the center of that, what is the experience I wanna actually create? And then what technology allows me to do this best? Do I need to build it? Do I need to buy it? You know, do I need to license it, etcetera. So I think it's just, I think there's a process really behind it.
Justin L. Mack: (23:46)
Absolutely.
Margaret Hardigan: (23:47)
Yeah. Go for it. One thing I would say about the planning tool too, is, the more you can automate it's great, coz it just adds efficiency and especially if it it's easier for your client associates and back office, coz frankly, they do a lot of the work. But the other thing is planning enables you to focus on like the big Socratic questions about like what matters to the client. When you put it in the context of them and like their loved ones or goals like their heartaches, that's where you shine, that's where you add your value and then it doesn't become transactional. So whatever you can do to put yourself in that position, I think the planning tools really do that and I think it's very warmly received and add stickiness to a family.
Justin L. Mack: (24:27)
Absolutely. Well of course, thank you guys for being a part of this. I wanna save some room for Q & A, so I wanna open it up to the, any questions you might have, just raise your hand and we'll make sure we get a microphone out to you. Any questions in the crowd going once, going twice? Oh, that it, there we go. Apologies the spotlight. I can't see a thing down the middle. So it's just a guess.
Audience Member 1: (24:54)
Hi, it's thank you for the talk today. It's it's great. it's interesting to watch the transition from the discussions around robo advisor and self-service to now about platforms that enable relationships. I wanted to get your thoughts on, are those still two tracks or has the robo advisor self-service track really sort of dried up in terms of, effort in the industry.
Margaret Hardigan: (25:24)
I'm happy to begin. I'm probably the original gangster of this space, cuz we've been around for quite a while. So we were at once pioneers and then we lived through the different vintages. We always went, we were business to business first. We decided to do take our groovy financial advisor and client stuff and integrate it into the backbones of what are actually the FinTech's, which are like the custodians and cores. They are kind of the source of truth and they own a lot. I never believed robo is gonna disrupt financial services, at all, but I definitely felt it needed to compliment financial services. You know, everyone is calling someone when they saw their business or the IPO or what not, but a lot of us need help when we're just starting out like starting families, like going through divorces, all of that kind of stuff.
Margaret Hardigan: (26:12)
And it really is hard to manage the way you want all of those smaller accounts. You'll also offend some of your more premier clients. Like if you don't take their niece or nephew or, or something like that. So you do need an automated way to do that. I think things have to be more platforms and they need to be more holistic ecosystems or they at least have to talk to the other players in the organization. So I think, well front and betterment and others, have done a tremendous job. A lot of what they have done is being adopted by incumbents. But I don't think that we're gonna see a world where betterment or someone else like kind of trumps, the more hybrid model. In fact, I think all of the direct to consumer models are either marrying up like UBS, you know, well fronted with UBS or they're actually starting to offer individual advisors. I've heard even like Robin hood and, and obviously betterment went that space. So, and then of course all of the incumbents are trying to go more digital. So I think it's just gonna be this confluence in marriage of, of technology with individuals, if that answers your question.
Trupti Joshi: (27:22)
Yeah. So for me and for facet, I think, you know, I think we're solving for something that's quite different in the marketplace. And for us, it's really about what does the mass affluent segment need. And I mentioned it earlier, but 75% of our clients have never worked with a financial planner. And there is, there are millions of households out there that need financial planning, right? They need the type of service we're offering, but they don't really understand it. And the industry has largely defined planning as investing your money and the AUM model in terms of fees, hasn't really helped, in terms of where the emphasis and the energy is placed. and it's also largely retirement, but if you really offer an entire life financial planning solution where we believe every decision is a financial decision, then the solution that you come up with is different.
Trupti Joshi: (28:11)
So how can a robo deliver that solution? Right. If we define the problem differently, we end up with a very, very different solution. And so for us, we think the American consumer requires the best of what a CFP and a platform or technology can offer. And so robos are, you know, great at if you wanna put a little bit of money in and, you know, have it sort of manage itself great. But if you're looking to really provide full financial life advice across the hundreds of questions that come up in a year, how can, you know, a robo solution really do that? So for us, it's redefining the problem and then building a solution that combines the best of those two things. And that's, I think very different than the robos,
Audience Member 2: (28:59)
Literally just on stage that I was wondering if
Audience Member 2: (29:12)
Both of you would mind weighing in on your thoughts on fees and you know, now that we've gone through fee compression on the asset management side, I I'd be interested on thoughts on the approach of fees for consumers to gain access, to planning and investing.
Margaret Hardigan: (29:34)
I, I think Erin's probably right about the
Margaret Hardigan: (29:39)
Confirmation of, or validation of, the UBS purchase. I also think UBS, you know, underneath UBS is kid or Peabody and like a lot of other like mergers that have tried to integrate technology and back office, and they don't have a me edge or some other, so it was really smart for them to go out and buy something. And then all of these assets that maybe, and people that they can maybe cross sell, what's difficult in our industry is the fixed lines of distribution and transmission from either the core or the custodian are fixed. Like the end consumer wants everything free. but you all have to get paid and you're paying to your back office providers, right? So I think where the challenges for us as an industry is to kind of re redefine ourselves in our value proposition. And it's not on performance, you know, it's not on because you're gonna lose a lot too, right.
Margaret Hardigan: (30:34)
I mean, that's just not the right way to do it. It's, it's on a broader offering. And what's interesting is if you look at some of the tools that help people budget or round up or whatnot, if you look at what the people are paying on a monthly fee, based on like the percentage of assets, it's actually really, really high, but because they put it in like a dollar term, people kind of dismiss it. so again, I think also when you tell people like I do this work, I, you know, I, I have to pay and I, you know, offer all these services. I mean, there's gonna be, there's going to be continued fee compression, but I also think there's gonna be people that probably get washed out with this market volatility and, and maybe over concentrating in riskier assets that will come back to us, like happened after 2000 and say, you know what, maybe I'm not that great at this. Or maybe I should be day trading like meme stocks or, or whatnot. So I think you will see people coming back and wanting, to work with individuals, but also be taught about asset allocation and diversification. And if not actually taught about the market terms, they wanna know what is the right plan for me to hit all these other objectives. So, but I think that's why you have to offer planning and other tools, that make you make us more than a one trick pony. I dunno if that answers your question, but
Trupti Joshi: (31:53)
Yeah. So for us, you know, we believe in the fixed fee model, so we're bringing a subscription fixed fee model to the marketplace. we think the reason that's so important is that to provide truly objective advice to clients, we have to have unconflicted certified financial planners. and I'll give you an example in servicing the mass affluent. There are certain clients that we work with that should not put money in the market yet. They have to clear down debt, for example, you know, we've, we've helped a lot of our clients pay down debt and then become investors when the time is ready, like when the time is right for them. And that's very difficult to do. It's very difficult, first of all, to service clients that don't have Abut have the capacity to have AUM if they manage their budgets differently because they have a great income.
Trupti Joshi: (32:38)
And so we'll nurture clients on that journey, right where they maybe don't have any money saved, but we have to get them into a savings mode, free up cash flow and then put it into the market. So I think for us, the fee model is everything in one being able to democratize a service and number two, do the right thing for the client. And so for us fee compression is a little bit irrelevant. We've priced our service subscription model at different tiers that, you know, allow us to provide a best in class experience that is high impact and high value, but have solved for it with the cost model. And the cost model of course, is driven by technology. And so I think that's, what's really unique about facet and the way we think about it,
Justin L. Mack: (33:21)
Right. And with that is actually going to be our time, but please, another round of applause for our amazing panelists, true to Josh GaN. Thank you so much for joining us.
Readying for the next digital evolution in financial planning
June 29, 2022 10:36 AM
33:38