Only Fee-Only
This podcast interviews fee-only financial planners to learn about how they are helping their clients and serving their specific niches.
Only Fee-Only
#104 - Transforming the Future of Finance with "Mr. Measure Twice" Cody Garrett
Cody Garrett joins us for the second time to talk about his journey from musician to financial planner. In this episode, he shares how hosting financial planning meetings on YouTube has attracted a large audience and boosted his business. Cody discusses the growth of his solo RIA, Measure Twice Financial, and his educational platform, Measure Twice Planners, which now has over 400 members. He also explains how he maintains a healthy work-life balance by focusing on projects he loves.
We explore the changes in financial advising and how technology is reshaping the industry. Cody talks about his work in the FinTech space, helping startups create software that truly meets planners’ needs, and highlights the shift from product sales to planning-first approaches.
Cody also emphasizes the importance of education for both consumers and planners, advocating for better life insurance evaluations for non-working spouses and practical financial education in university programs.
Cody's Social:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/codylgarrett/
x: @MeasureTwiceMNY
https://www.measuretwicemoney.com/
Music in this episode was obtained from Bensound.
What's going on. Everyone, Welcome back. This is the only the only podcast. So happy to have you guys here. In this episode we got to talk to Cody Garrett, who actually now we're at over 100 episodes. He was the fourth guest ever to be on the podcast a couple of years ago and he was already making a splash in the financial planning space. But I have to say, for somebody that five or six years ago was literally a professional musician and was not doing anything finance related, it's insane to see what he's done in the last few years Measure twice planners, measure twice money. He's doing things to help people get their CFP. I mean it really is amazing to see what he's doing and we catch up with him in this episode. So, without further ado, enjoy this episode with Cody Garrett on the Only Fee Only podcast.
Speaker 2:What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only podcast. I'm Peter Travello. I'm here with my co-host, brock Buckles. How's it going today, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only podcast. I'm Peter Travelo. I'm here with my co-host, brock Buckles. How's it going today, brock?
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's going really well. I feel like I'm dreaming, not ready to wake up.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, but today we're very excited to have Cody Garrett back on. Everyone might know him as Mr Measure Twice. He's got quite the umbrella of work that he's doing and we're so excited to have him back on as he has grown so so much since the first time he's been on. So, Cody, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks so much for inviting me back. It was really funny. You're talking about, you know, this two year checkup, just like financial planning. You know a client comes back two years. You're like what's changed? You're like, oh, I had a kid, we bought a farm, we bought three houses. Uh, you know, I'm not working at that company. I was before, so it's actually. It's funny. Like this annual, like this checkup is kind of like a financial planning checkup and yeah, you're like everything we talked about last time no longer applies this time around yeah, absolutely love it.
Speaker 2:So for those who don't know who you are, you want to give a quick overview before we really drill into what you've been up to.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the biggest thing with me, I was a career changer. I switched from music to money overnight in 2018. I worked at an independent RIA a financial planning firm, wealth management firm for I think two and a half years, got my CFP designation and I got out of there because I wanted to serve different people differently. So I serve DIY investors on the path to early retirement within five years. So that's Measure Twice Financial, my solo RIA. I have kept that solo and even like our last conversation, it was amazing, by the way.
Speaker 3:Just a quick thing, I was on your podcast really early on, like, I think, like in the first five episodes yeah, number four, yeah. So even back then, I told you on the podcast that I only accepted 22 clients a year. I was working about 10 hours a week so that I could spend more time doing other things to impact the profession, and now I'm doing those things. So financial planning it's funny my financial planning firm is actually the smallest thing I'm doing now. I spend only about five hours a week in financial planning. I don't manage any investments, so I don't even have a phone in my business. So, clients, I don't get phone calls during the day to distract me from deep work, which is a lot of fun, but I love financial planning, so I decided to spend.
Speaker 3:What do you do with all those extra hours besides? Just lay on a hammock all day on the beach. I don't think I'll ever retire. So now I'm kind of in the stage I'm not financially independent, but I'm living like it. I'm living like a kind of a work optional type of world where I just focus on what I love doing and the money seems to come.
Speaker 3:So my financial planning firm is still at quote unquote limited full capacity. Again, I'm only working with people I've worked with before in the past who come back, maybe for an annual checkup. But what's a cool transition moving forward is I'm kind of at this place where I am quote unquote accepting new clients, but only if they're willing to be recorded and to have all our financial planning meetings, all their documents, real names, real numbers, real conversations shared not only within our private financial advisor community, but literally all their videos are on YouTube now. So I'm actually publicizing my financial planning process to the world and some people might ask hey, well, how many people really want their whole financial plan on YouTube shared with the world? And I actually announced it and 80 people applied the first day I announced it. The world and I actually announced it and 80 people applied the first day I announced it. So, yeah, there's big demand for financial planning, even if it's fully transparent and vulnerable on YouTube, so that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:I mean more than you would think yeah, more than you would think Originally 80 people sign up. I wouldn't have not thought that you were going to say that, but let's get into it because I don't know if you had mentioned it to us or not last time you're on the podcast a couple of years ago. But I remember, like the original offering for Measure Twice Planners and hearing about that and hearing a lot of the other planners that we work with signing up for it. So tell us about like, how'd that launch go, what's the evolution been like and where are you at with that man?
Speaker 3:yeah, so yeah, so it's funny. I launched Measure Twice Planners literally two months after our original podcast episode. It's now grown to over 400 official members. It's an annual subscription. One reason it's annual rather than monthly, some people ask, is that as soon as you become a member, you get full access to over 60 hours now of educational video content.
Speaker 3:We also provide two really awesome things now. We started providing CE credit for CFP professionals. We have the 30 plus hours of CE there, but this is really cool. The CFP board is now accepting 50 hours per month of experience through membership of Measure Twice planners. I mean assuming, of course they have to do the work. But what's really cool about Measure Twice planners now is not only do you get access to all the content right away of course they have to do the work but what's really cool about Measure Twice Planners now is not only do you get access to all the content right away, you don't have to go through like. It's not like going back to your academic world where you have to go in order. You can just jump around, learn what you want to learn about different things. But we also, in terms of the experience, all the financial planning I'm doing with new clients. I'm actually bringing in their real documents right. We're watching their real meetings with me during live bi-weekly calls. So it's a really cool experiential opportunity, not only for current financial advisors but also it's kind of fun.
Speaker 3:This is the first semester in universities where we're actually bringing Measure Twice Planners content into the university programs themselves. So one example is University of North Texas. We had a mark, the program director there, mark Evers. He actually allowed, you know, he allowed the students to watch my financial planning meetings and make, you know, make the real financial planning case study, the capstone or the case study for their class. So it's really cool to be able to actually take what I'm doing as a financial planner, financial advisor, and saying how many people can we teach with this experience? So we're going yes into measure twice planners, yes into university programs. And then finally, we're going ultimately to the public, to change the public perception with the YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:I love it. I mean that's so cool to be a fly on the wall and to see what financial planning is like, because I feel like a lot of people you know it's numbers, it's things like that. But it's also like how do you have these conversations with your client? You know how do you put it in so and so layman's terms, and they say law school, they taught them about law but it didn't teach them how to run a business. Or you know practice it, or you know stand up and cross examine someone. So it's just so fascinating and so cool to hear that, because not many other people you know they're not putting out that kind of content.
Speaker 3:So it's going to be so great for future, future planners to have those resources. Yeah, and to add to that, one thing about the meetings that everybody's so surprised of they watch a financial planner or a financial advisor in a meeting with a client and they assume we're going to be talking about their portfolio the whole time, their investments, their insurance needs. And let's say, for example, there's an awesome financial planning client named Jamie, our first 45-minute meeting. We don't talk about the numbers at all. You know it's a very emotional, very vulnerable. She talks about, you know, again, in terms of like, how she wants to really be a steward of the money that she has for her kids. Her ex-husband of 30 years passed away, right. So it's really cool to share not just the quantitative numbers like we will get to the numbers, of course but it's really cool to be able to share, like, not just what financial planning looks like, but what it feels like in terms of like, really going beyond the numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually had the chance to watch part of one of your videos before we got on here because I was just interested in it and I can't remember the couple's names. But you were talking about how you started the meeting by saying you know, I remember you guys have always liked to handle money together and just kind of talking about their mindset around money. And what a cool way to kind of I don't know if that was the first or second meeting, but it's really cool just the way that you handle the conversations and also giving other people and other financial planners the opportunity to see that. And I mean, just hop on YouTube and be like I can watch a real financial planning process, the way these meetings are moving along, the different ways that the conversations happen organically. So salute to you, man. It's really cool to see all of that.
Speaker 3:Appreciate that. And also it's cool that financial advisors, financial planning whether current veteran, new aspiring can watch those meetings and say maybe I could develop, maybe I could maybe take some nuggets from how Cody does it into my own firm experience. But also what's really cool is now consumers are watching the videos and saying, oh, I always thought that hiring a financial planner was just going to be about managing my assets and just talking about money. And a lot of them are saying, well, I want that type of experience. How can I get that? So I'm actually trying to change the public perception of financial planning so that consumers say, wow, like you know, I want something like that. And hopefully the demand for real financial planning just increases because of consumers watching the videos as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so important because you know, like so many people, they think that they're working with a financial planner and they're simply not getting those services. So, shaping it, educating people I mean, of course, when we're in this industry and this is a B2B podcast, more or less right Our listeners are fee only planners. But to the consumer they might think they have a financial planner but they've got a truthful mutual insurance rep and they're great and they call them on their birthday every year, right, but it's not financial planning.
Speaker 3:So definitely like pumping that knowledge out there to the public and just reframing it is so so key, and you'll also see when you watch these videos, literally all three of the financial planning clients that I work with on YouTube. I ask them hey, like, tell me about your previous experience working with an advisor? And all of them either are or have worked with a financial advisor and they all say it was nothing like this. It was completely different. You know, I didn't hear from my advisor for years. I might have gotten a birthday card at the most. When I did go to a meeting, all they talked about was benchmarking against you know other investments, which I had no idea what they were talking about. They never talked about my family. They only talked about my finances. So it's really.
Speaker 3:I love this idea that, yeah, you're saying there are different worlds. When you say financial advisor, financial planner, that means nothing. You have to really understand who do they serve, how do they serve. So I'm excited not to be like the. I'm not the first or the only to do this, but I'm hoping that maybe by the time this podcast airs, somebody will be like oh, I want to do that too. How can I bring real life planning into the public perception?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, it's true authentic financial planning. It's not just your advisor. If you buy a whole life that year, he sends a barrel of popcorn to your house at Christmas time, right, it's like you actually care about what's going on, so that's really cool. So when you're talking about the DIY investors, cody, is that kind of when measure twice, money comes in. Talk to us more about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I found that, since I wasn't accepting new clients actually, last time we talked in early 2022, I was receiving about 20 prospective client inquiries per week and I was like, well, as a one-man show, as somebody who didn't want to go boutique or scale their firm one-on-one, I was like, well, how do I serve all these people I'm saying no to Effectively? Even as a musician, I had this idea of, like, how can I say yes when I say no? So when I said no to one-on-one financial planning, I said, okay, how can I serve them even if they don't work with me? Again, have that abundance mindset that they don't have to work with me to be successful.
Speaker 3:So I actually ended up recording my entire financial planning process how I review every financial document going through, literally from the first time you see your numbers, all the way to implementation and monitoring. I packaged that into a five-hour video course including over 50 templates, calculators, tools. Again, all you need is Word and Excel on your computer and you can create your own financial plan. So that's literally called create your own financial plan. So, yeah, I've now so at Measure Twice Money, I'm actually selling that video course. But even beyond the selling of it, I'm releasing a lot of this content for free in different ways on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. So let's talk about those other ways of content. I mean, you've been building on YouTube. We see quite a few other advisors going that way. What's been your experience so far on YouTube and getting your message out there?
Speaker 3:for people. I would say probably every two days I get an email from someone saying hey, I know you're not accepting new clients, but can you just let one more in? The irony of it is that it has increased demand, at least for my services. But I think maybe again it's one of those kind of like being an interview you turn your weakness into a strength. I think this is an opportunity actually for me to help consumers find financial planners. I know there are some great networks out there but with that said, whether it's Garrett Planning, network, xy Planning, the flatfeeadvisorsorg, there are all these different platforms and again, we're giving people actually unfortunately too many options and they're getting even more confused.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I think maybe a next step for me will be just having a really nice heuristic or maybe just an easier path to finding a financial planner. I kind of call them planning first advisors, right? So you know we talked about insurance. Like, again, I know that you're even working currently with clients that I serve in financial planning, so I'm very pro insurance. We talk about don't let the product lead the plan right, and I also don't want to do that. When I'm helping people find an advisor, I want to ensure that they're actually finding somebody who's actually going to be planning first planning focused and only implement whether it's investment management, insurance products only implement only after they've done the comprehensive planning process. So it's always hard to vet people. I'm not going to be going door to door vetting advisors to be on my list of planners to work with, but I do hope in the future there's a more simple way to find a good advisor.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So I mean all good points there. That brings me kind of to my next thought. I know that there's a lot of stuff that you're kind of doing and experimenting and getting into the FinTech space a little bit and doing some different financial planning tools. It's like, what are you not doing at this point, cody, but tell us about kind of what's going on with that world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so FinTech. It's been funny to me I've realized again since, not just launching my firm, but since I looked at Spotify I think I've been on like over 50 podcasts or something in the last few years and when that happens again, that social proof, your name gets out there. I get pitches all the time from somebody at Harvard getting their MBA and saying I'm going to launch a new financial planning software. Cody, could you help me? Can I just like again throw ideas at you? So I probably talked with like in, uh in the last year, maybe like five or more uh FinTech companies. You know, startups trying to create financial planning software.
Speaker 3:But here's the biggest issue None of these financial planning softwares again like, um, you know, I'm not I'm not going to name any names because most of them fall within the umbrella at this point that um, hardly any financial planning software was actually created by financial planners, right? So what happens is they create a tool and then they go to market and then the advisors are like and I, as you know a lot of advisors they say, well, I need to quote, unquote, I need to have a financial planning software. They just they start using the first one. They try and the problem is there. One thing about financial planning software overall is that it lacks flexibility, right, it lacks that like liquidity. To say like, how can I, you know, how can I customize the planning experience for each client? Because each client learns differently, cares about different things, and they are slowly getting there. But ultimately, I actually created my fourth LLC, measure Twice Consulting, which is specifically to really help fintech companies create their tool for financial planners, not just the traditional financial advisor who might be using the tool as a way to gather assets.
Speaker 3:So I'm really trying to change it where, again, imagine a financial planning software where, when you go in, it actually asks you about you, your family and your unique values before it even gets into. You know, put in your assets, your income, your expenses, your insurance, right. So making sure that you're even entering all the inputs need to be in the right order and asking the right questions in the right way. Same thing with making sure that if you know, if a couple or spouses are using financial planning software, that it doesn't feel like one of them is leading the plan right, that it's a collaborative, relationship-based process.
Speaker 3:So, again, I'm just excited about again, I'm not going to announce anything. I don't have some big announcement to make or anything, but I'm excited for FinTech to actually say you know what. We should go get advice from the people who actually do this every day, right, rather than just getting advice from, maybe, advisors who actually do this every day, right, rather than just getting advice, for you know, from maybe advisors on the, you know, on the startup equity, you know, venture capital side of things. Because I think really, it's almost like you know, ask the advisors how the advisors are going to use this tool, rather than building a software, than going to market and being like nobody's using it or nobody's using it the way we intended.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to have that field experience and I would love to see the person's reaction, or the founder. You know, talking to Cody and you're like you know I'm the Excel and Word guy. You know they're trying to sell you a new flashy, shiny software Because you know, and the conversation has always been like, what are your values? You know the numbers are the numbers. Math is math right. Numbers, math is math right.
Speaker 2:Um, we can make them work the way that they need to, but really you know understanding why people do what they do and what makes them tick yeah.
Speaker 3:And ultimately, I want, I want, um you know, fintech companies and new aspiring planners to understand financial planning software is supposed to be used as a supplement for your process, not a replacement for your process and what I'm finding is most people, especially students, they go through the education process, so they go through their education and they might try.
Speaker 3:Maybe. E-money, like Hannah Moore's externship program, is fantastic, and what's happening, though, is new advisors are getting exposed to the software and be like wow, this is a very powerful tool. But the irony is that when they learn about the tool, the tool is more powerful than they are, so they start to rely on the tool for being the financial planner rather than actually building up their own knowledge and experience, then going to software to say how can I use this to supplement my pre-existing process? So, ironically, even though I'm helping fintech companies with financial planning software, even at the moment, ironically, I spend about only maybe 20% of my conversation with clients actually looking at reports that were built by software. 80% is conversations, of course, using my own templates and tools. So, even if I use financial planning software, it only touches maybe two to five areas of planning out of the 30 plus that I cover with clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how do you feel like? I mean, obviously there's Measure Twice planners. They, I would imagine, have access to a lot of those tools right Through that. So what has the feedback from the advisors been like that have relied maybe more on those softwares out there, the financial planning softwares that have started implementing some of those tools.
Speaker 3:What's some of the feedback that you've gotten from people? Yeah, I think the first step was actually helping people realize the limitations. So let's talk about insurance for a minute, right, financial planning software, as we talk about a lot of times about insurance. I won't name the software, I'll be nice, but there is a software out there. If you type in that one spouse doesn't have earned income, you know, even on the software it says that, you know, it calls it the life value, which I know is like, is you know, that's that's language from the insurance industry. But it would literally say hey, um, let's say there's Susan and Steve married couple. If Susan let's say Susan doesn't have earned income Like my wife, for example, it would say Susan has a life, a life value of $0, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not true.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly. So, as you know, right like life insurance, isn't only to supplement the loss of future income, it's also to supplement again the type of work that they did outside of work, right? So, taking care of kids, you know, child care, the things you talk about with clients. So, first of all, the first step was actually helping reveal that a lot of the planning areas that are very personal and very vulnerable and transparent. It's very hard to have a conversation with when, on the screen, it says that you're worth nothing, right? So what I did on the side, I literally built an Excel calculator, a term life insurance calculator where, alongside a conversation, you talk through the calculation. Also, I love Brock and Peter. We always have this issue of talking to the insured about how much life insurance they need, rather than talking to the person who's actually going to receive the benefit if they die.
Speaker 3:So even having conversations about hey, let's fill this out all together, the couple with me, but actually let's have who would be the surviving spouse really lead this conversation of what their life might look like if their spouse pre-deceased them. So using that tool again, you know, using my calculator, and saying again we can add more variables beyond just your income there, whereas in the financial planning software it might say, oh, susan, you're not worth anything, so let's just move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right. Yeah, susan gets zero life insurance because she doesn't work. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is which is the wrong distinctions? Yeah, so, Cody, I know I'm going to be swallowing my words, um, but you know the quote that you said earlier. You know, used to be a musician, didn't know what a IRA was. Now you're in a RIA. Um, you know what's the future look like? Two years, four years, I mean? I know you mentioned maybe a little bit more consulting and growing out your current practices, but where do you see this going?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I'm. Ultimately. Right now I'm looking at scaled education. Again, you talk, you know, and, by the way, I mean the difference between education and advice. Right, I think sometimes we confuse that, especially when you're listening to people on TikTok at you know, truth, mutual or whatever. Right, yeah, with that said, I want to scale the impact of education. What I mean by education, the way I describe it, is really helping others make their own well informed decisions. So, rather than telling people what to do, you educate them. You know, provide personalized education to help them make their own well informed decision.
Speaker 3:There's a basic framework I use, which is that clarity precedes confidence. I think, as financial advisors, we try to really help clients gain confidence as soon as possible, not just in the recommendations, but also in us as advisors. Like, hey, I want to gain trust and confidence in my advisor, but I say, clarity precedes confidence. We have to understand where we are before determining where to go and how to get there. So, in the consumer side, I want to increase education to consumers without selling them a solution. Again, it's very hard to trust somebody who's telling you the benefits of certain strategies and they're like by the way, I sell one of those strategies. As you know right, you're definitely some of the great guys, the good guys out there doing it, but on the other side, for advisors it just fell out of my head, let me pick it back up. So yeah, with consumers educating them to really make well-informed decisions without being sold a strategy, and on the advisor, really educating them, especially scaling to these university programs, I would love for somebody as a freshman in a university program their first time learning about financial planning is being taught by somebody who actually does financial planning.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love the academic world of financial planning but, with that said, I want to make sure that in the academia they're actually learning from some practicing financial planners who not necessarily just saw clients at some point in their career but are literally having conversations every day with people. So I do plan to stay in the game. I plan to keep my RAA Again. I'm not going to drop my firm and then start telling other people how it works in the business Because, as you know, every week our industry is changing. I want to keep up to date.
Speaker 3:So ultimately, again, just to scale back. It's scaling education to consumers on really what to expect when you hire an advisor or do it yourself and then scaling education to the aspiring and new financial planners so they know that financial planning isn't a loss leader right, it isn't like an add-on or a value add or a loss leader in the industry Stand alone in and of itself. It's a valuable service and process. So I'm hoping that in five years from now, when these students are graduating from their university programs, when they go to find that first job, they're asking questions about hey, could you tell me about your process to learn more about the client's families and not just their finances?
Speaker 3:And they'll be, like we just look at their investment portfolio. That's it. You're like well, that's a good sign that I should maybe talk to the next table about their financial planning offerings.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm excited for the future of the profession, going beyond more of the traditional side. Just a quick, quick note A lot of people are probably already blocked me by now in terms of social media, but I've always been very conscious about the idea of investment management. Investment management and insurance products, certainly. But implementation is so important. Right, it's such an integral part of the planning process, but we still have to step back and understand that implementation is at the end of the process. We can't skip data gathering, really getting to know not just the quantitative but the qualitative data about the families we serve. So I'm trying to help people spend just as much time thinking about the people we serve and then we can go into the products and making sure we implement correctly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that I've got one more for you, because I think this is very important to hit on Outside of the business. If Cody from four years ago is talking to Cody now, what would he have to say about everything?
Speaker 3:What's an RIA?
Speaker 1:I love it, man, I love it. Well, everybody wants to follow along because I think you're very worthwhile following. You put out a lot of great content. Measure Twice Planners is absolutely blown up because of the quality of it. How can people follow along with?
Speaker 3:you and get in touch with you. Cody Sure, if you're a financial planner, financial advisor or new or aspiring, go to measuretwiceplannerscom. If you're a consumer and you just happen to be listening to Advisor Podcast, because you're an absolute nerd- go to measuretwicemoneycom to build your own financial plan without being sold anything.
Speaker 3:And then, lastly, I'm on X. I still call it Twitter, of course. I'm also, of course, on LinkedIn. By the way, if you add me on LinkedIn, if you try to sell me something in your first DM, I will block you. So just add me on LinkedIn and just chill for a moment. Okay, just chill.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it Well, cody. Thank you so so much for coming on this afternoon. We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Great to see you too. You too, man.