Grow Retire Ready Clients
Grow Retire Ready Clients
Wade Murphy | The Pension Geeks
In this exciting new podcast hear how Wade's Murphy's simple mission has not only changed their company name but impacted how they reach and interact with clients and ultimately grown their business. Wade Murphy has over 30 years of experience in the 403b space and has valuable advise on how to differentiate yourself in this niche market.
Ed Dressel here with another exciting session with Grow RetireReady Clients. I am with Wade Murphy. He's out of Rolling Hills Estates in California. The rest of us would call it LA. His broker dealer is GWN Securities. He's got a great company name that kind of resonates with me a lot called The Pension Geeks. I'm excited to get going because I love pension plans. I love talking about them. Spent a lot of time researching them. Wade, welcome. Nice to have you here today.
Wade Murphy:Well, I'm glad to be here. I've been a longtime fan of you and your software. So I was happy to be invited.
Ed Dressel:I don't know how long we go back. I'm going to almost say 30 years.
Wade Murphy:Yeah, I started using TRAK Software in the early 90s--91, 92. Somewhere around there.
Ed Dressel:I remember you at the conferences. You were a tennis player. You still are. You played tennis and it was like, that's what we knew you as--kind of your branding is and still on the circuit. You're playing some masters tennis. Tell us a little bit about your business in southern California.
Wade Murphy:I am really lucky to have my son as a business partner. He graduated a couple years ago with a degree in finance. He went to school up near you--Pacific University in Oregon. And so we truly specialize with school employees and helping them create plans around their pension. We're pension first planners. We think that's their biggest retirement asset for most of them. And so that's been our business and it's been my specific business for 15 years. Before that I spent 15 years or so working for a company that designed fixed annuity products for the 403(b) marketplace. So I've done a lot of different jobs within the 403(b) space.
Ed Dressel:When you go out and market your company--finding a niche--and your company name absolutely says I'm working a niche. Tell me a little bit about the specifics of how you differentiate yourself in the 403(b) space as a 403(b) expert. What do you bring into the table for school districts that you work in?
Wade Murphy:Well, for the longest time, our main corporation name is Envision Financial Group. And that was my first company name going back to the early 90s. And because I felt like educators didn't want programs just built for educators. They wanted smart investments that would work for anybody. So sometimes programs that were built specifically for educators were maybe a little bit longer term products, longer term annuity products, especially in the early years. And so what we've started doing here, just in the last three years or so, is really ignoring all the noise out there in the market with other advisors, other businesses, and the advocacy groups that are out there. And we're just being us. And so we really go to a lot of schools. We find the schools that want us there--there's some schools that don't--and we're delivering food, we will do meetings for them if they want. We do zoom meetings, and other type of marketing programs where we're really showing who we are. And I think that was the biggest change is that when we go to a school site or our marketing, it's a lot more video showing who we are and why we're passionate about the 403(b) marketplace and what our overall mission is, which is to make sure that every school employee gets every penny they're due from their pension.
Ed Dressel:How do you differentiate yourself from an advisor that they seem a little bit flat in the engagement model? What are you doing to say no, there's really something note about pension plans and I can help you out?
Wade Murphy:Well, we think that that is the best part of our job. We get a headstart. Educators have this head start when it comes to their retirement that small businesses, in other individuals, sometimes people that work in companies that have no retirement plan at all, and they they're just looking at social security. And so we lead with that pension first and say this is what makes our jobs so fun. Because if you spend 30 minutes on a zoom call with us, and we provide a pension analysis for you, the light at the end of the tunnel gets bright. And the funnest part of our job is to show people this and they look and they go "Oh my gosh, I couldn't really retire at 60?" And we say "Well, yeah, look at the numbers and look at the job that you've done on your side funds" and different things like that. And so I think that's what differentiates ourselves is that we go in not looking to gather assets. We load massive value up front. We're applying for the job as your financial advisor or your retirement planner. And so our whole goal is, let us show you this good news first. Let us give you a glimpse into your future and how wonderful it is. And teachers have a tough job. And depending on the school districts that you work at, some of them don't get paid a lot. But all of them have this amazing retirement that's waiting for them. And so we go in with that excitement, that passion, saying, let us show you this and provide you this roadmap. And then at some point in the future, if you're looking for somebody to manage your 403(b) assets, or some net assets that are held outside of that plan, like old IRAs or old 401(k)s--we're applying for that job.
Ed Dressel:So tell us some stories. What happened when you showed somebody? Yep, here's what your pensions can provide. What difference did it make to them? And how did that meeting go?
Wade Murphy:Well, we just had one recently, where a client had a much older husband, and she's like, hey, I'm retiring early. We want to go and enjoy our lives and do some traveling and do all these things. And, and she was like, look, I'm I'm out. I want to retire at 58. My husband will be 72 right then. And so that gives us this little bit of window. And so we ran the pension analysis for her and we used obviously, we use TRAK Software and TRAK has a new module, that I don't know how long it's been out. But we've been using it for a while now. And it shows the total payout for them from their retirement age through their life expectancy. And so we showed her along with a lot of other things inside the software. But we showed her that if you retired at 59 instead of 58, it's worth about $500,000 more in your retirement than if you retired at 58. And then we showed that if you retired at 60, well, it's only goes up another 100,000 or so. So your sweet spot is really 59. And so the light came on, and she was like, okay, yeah, I can I can go to 59. And then we talked about how we can build a supplemental plan around that and do some Roth 403(b) planning, because the Roth 403(b), I think is a misunderstood program within the schools. And so that was really fun for us, because then they were able to see, okay, here's our plan. Now we can start building our lives around us retiring at 59. And doing the traveling and things like that.
Ed Dressel:That's a brand new feature this year we've added. We're going to be extending to that but I don't like to make promises on the phone about delivery dates, because I could get in trouble. Like, hey, we didn't make the delivery date, it was more complicated. But we're excited to add to it. I'll tell you a fun story I saw. I was working at a conference and a business officer stopped by she's 28, not making a lot of money, but going to stay to age 60. And she found out that her total distributions--making$5,000 today--that her total distributions starting at age 60, over life expectancy was going to be $3.9 million. She had tears in her eyes. I thought she was gonna hug me. I had to step back. And then she said
what was key:I'm never leaving my job. And when you can bring that to a school district that I'm going to help your employees understand the value of your pension--what you're doing right up front--it can really help them stay with their job. The school district likes having you in there because you're helping them keep their employees around. But you're also on the other end, helping them value their position. And so it's a win-win for an advisor. You get a good relationship with the business staff and the employees as well. So have you had any of that? Have you worked with the business officers to help them understand the value you're bringing in by showing them the pension plan?
Wade Murphy:Yeah, we just have an opportunity right now. One of our longtime clients is the HR director for a local school district. And we were talking to him about doing some presentation, some zoom meetings for him. And he's like, okay, you know, I brought it to our superintendent, and they're considering it. And so we talked a little bit about this particular idea that what we want to show them is the value of their pension over their lifetime. And what a wonderful benefit this is that the school district is supplying to them. And so that really kind of changed the conversation of us going in there and advertising who we are and we're The Pension Geeks and we want to manage your money and 403(b) plans. Instead we shifted it completely to let us help you show the value of the benefit that you're providing to your employees. And so it's changing that conversation. And so anytime we can get in front of a group of educators, talking to them, and educating them about one portion of their investments, or their overall retirement plan, it opens us up to be able to provide other services to them without even asking for that other business.
Ed Dressel:So you changed your company name. You became The Pension Geeks. What are some of the changes you've made that service your clients effectively?
Wade Murphy:One of the most positive things that I did for my business was I cancelled every social media connection I had. I got completely off of Twitter, or X. And any other kind of affiliation on Facebook or anything like that, that dealt with 403(b), 403(b) advocacy, other advisors. My social media is more about my hobbies, and my friends and things like that, and no longer anything from work. I feel like the first part of my career, I was doing my job looking over my shoulder, comparing myself to what other advisors and other opportunities, and that's just not the case. Our businesses--we criss cross each other at conferences and things like that and you're hearing a commercial from these other advisors about how many referrals they get, and all of these things. And that was just noise that was taking our eye off the ball. And so we're now just focusing on being us. We're a father, son team. And we really have a lot of fun. That is our goal. We want to bring people into the mission that we have, which is to help them get every penny from their pension that they can and make smart investment choices for their 403(b) and their Roth 403(b). And so that along with a one thing that that my son Sean has brought to us is the technology. We've really become much more systematic, in all of our processes. Just from working with marketing companies that help us with sending out our newsletters on a systematic basis, economic reports on a systematic basis, and all of those things have been a real positive change for us because we're able to reach out to our customers with our personality, but do it in a systematic way. And that has really, I think, changed the relationship that we have with our clients. They come to us now more expecting good information, but also having a good time with us. We take the job seriously. But we don't take ourselves seriously. I think the the one other change if I can just add one other thing is that we've really embraced being investment fiduciaries. And we've built a lot of processes around proving that we don't just call ourselves fiduciaries. If somebody walked into our office and said, "Hey, you're a fiduciary tell me what that means and how you're providing fiduciary reviews." And so that is a process that we've put into place where every quarter we have meetings as an office, and then every six months, we have meetings with a local fun family Capital Group, everybody knows who Capital Group is. And we meet with their CFAs. We have portfolio reviews. We don't just use American funds, we use other fund families. And so we put all of that process, we record it, we put it in writing, we put it in a file so that our clients and any regulators that come in, understand that we are really focused on making the best investment decisions for our clients. And that doesn't mean we put them in a portfolio and look at it 10 years later.
Ed Dressel:There's a number of things that are pretty key in what you said there that could be pulled apart. And I cannot imagine you telling people I cancelled social media snd we're growing our business. That sounds so different than everything I've ever heard. It's attractive. I'd love to get out of social media. I mean, how could you make that initial leap?
Wade Murphy:Well, let me clarify. We're on LinkedIn, for example. And my son is 25. Right? He's all about digital marketing and things like that. But we know that when we get in front of people, and we're talking to them, and they see our personalities, and we're making jokes, and we're having a good time, but then we're also giving them with really good value and really good information. That's what creates referrals. That's what brings them into a Zoom meeting or, or sometimes we were just at a school site and and we were talking to the receptionist out front, and the principal comes out and he's like, "What's going on out here?" And we're laughing and we're talking about stuff. And then another lady comes out of her office and says "What do you do?" And we were like we we tried to get you every penny you're due from the pension."Oh, yeah. Well, that sounds great." And so I don't think that that can come across, in some sort of Instagram message, or Facebook or LinkedIn message that we send out to anybody. It's part of the process. And so we do LinkedIn advertising. And we do have a sales funnel where people come to our website, but our websites going through changes. We're taking most of the words off our website, it's only going to be doodle videos and videos of us talking about what we're passionate about and what we're doing. And so I don't think social media advertising works, especially for school employees. I think they're suspicious by nature, and they invest in the people and not the products.
Ed Dressel:And you really focus in everything you said there. You talk about really focusing on your mission, and vision, you've got a we're going to engage people on a personal level, even though you're in LA, which is just really sweet to me. I'm from small town America. And that's where we're at. But but I'm hearing you say from LA. How does engaging people on a relational level and being there in the room with them different than what you see other advisors bringing to the table?
Wade Murphy:Yeah, and that was one of the things that I was excited about this podcast, because a lot of the people that you have on these podcasts are really successful advisors, and they have huge agencies and large books of business. And we don't. There's just two of us. Well, you know, we, we've got enough, but we don't, I go to conferences, sometimes I see, you know, there's 10, guys, and they're all wearing matching polos and things like that. But you know, we're here in LA, where I'm competing with third party administrators who have their own sales force, and they're exchanging free TPA service for access--access that I don't have. Then, obviously, union controlled school districts and products, and they have access that I don't have. And so we really have to provide as much massive value and passion about what we're doing. And that's why the vast majority of our clients come from referrals, because people can see, oh, these guys have a proven repeatable process and they're interesting to be around. And that's how we set our selves apart. If we get a connection at a school district--like that school district that we went to in the principal came out--we make sure that we provide as much value to them as possible. Can we help with your Christmas party? Can we provide you with quick tips for a newsletter that you're going to be sending out or something like that. So however, we can create that personal relationship, that's what we're doing. And we feel like, there's kind of a shift back to that, because people are tired of going on their social media pages and just seeing all of these ads and all of this stuff that seems a little bit like trickery to them. So if we can be there in front of them, that's where we're going to make the most impact.
Ed Dressel:When you sit down with a client and you want to maximize the experience that they have, what are you doing to help them out?
Wade Murphy:The first thing that we do is let them know that we are providing as much information to them about the current programs they're in, and their pension. And we expect nothing in return, but a little bit of their attention. And many times we have told people, you're doing great. There are programs with some of the schools for those do it yourselfer teachers that are pretty good. And so we just had a lady in our office, and she's like, "Yeah, I've been doing this all myself, I was referred to you guys." And we're like, you know, this looks awesome to us. You don't need us. Let us help you do some pension work so you can kind of decide whether age 61 or 62 is going to be the sweet spot for you. And we're happy to do it. You know, tell your friends about us that we will help them with that. Well, you know, she came back a month later and said, "I'd like to move some of this stuff over to you guys because I'm tired of watching it." And so I guess that is the thing that we try to do the most is say look, we want to partner with you, but not in a way that is a big cash grab as far as gathering all of your assets. Let us just help you explain where you're at and some of the programs and I have a big background in annuities. I work for a company that design them so I can help explain some of the annuity products, especially some of those older index annuities that maybe are upside down for some of the client. But the last decade I spent telling people not to move their money because they were in products that had a guarantee of 3 or 4%. And now that we're going back to some of those people saying you know you can get a higher guaranteed rate, you know, for three or five years. They're listening, because we set the standard up front.
Ed Dressel:And it's scary for a lot of advisors to say, I don't need to make money on every person I sit in front of, or I don't need to push the sale. I can just assist people. And in the long run that'll pay off. You've been successful in southern California you're helping with in a very competitive world. How did you get to the position where I'm really going to help people, and I'm going to do the right thing. And I'm going to play the long game rather than the short game?
Wade Murphy:I think spending 15 years as a wholesaler, and I was the wholesaler for the western United States, and then I was lucky enough to get promoted to the national sales manager for a large company. And I got so much from that, not just the way products are designed, but also I met with every 403(b) producer worth their salt in 90s and early 2000s. And I saw the guys that were successful in the way that I wanted to be successful. Some of the people who ran their businesses the way I felt like if I was going to start my own business. There were many there, they had 15 agents, and they sold whatever they could sell and, and that was fine. That was their business model. And it certainly worked for us as wholesalers because we wanted their production. But I really had the benefit of seeing how really successful guys who put their clients first, how they ran their business and how over time--the tortoise and the hare type of thing--over time, they built this book of business that was really stable, and with a strong clientele. And so I didn't reinvent anything. I stole as many good ideas from those advisors throughout the United States. We were in 44 states and some some states, some places back on the East Coast and things like that, they have connections. They could go into the school and be in the lunch room and give meetings and stuff like that, that advisors out here in California can't do. But that was kind of the process for me and how I knew that if we ran our business this way that ultimately, we were going to be
Ed Dressel:Tell me a little bit about working with your son. successful. It's a unique opportunity. I know you two get along great. There's also probably stresses at it as well. I have my son working for me and I have both sides of the coin--some great things. I love working with my son, I love seeing them in the coffee room. How is that working with your son? And how do you guys work together?
Wade Murphy:Well, overall, it's amazing. I am just filled with gratitude that I have a business that I can pass on to him someday. He's always been very interested in money. He had a small business that he started when he was in college getting his finance degree. And so he's always been that type of kid. Always fascinated with the markets and his e-trade accounts. And he's learned his lessons with Bitcoin and NFT's and all of those things. So he went through all of that. We also have the benefit of he played grew up playing tennis, and he played tennis up in college. And we compete nationally in father/son tennis tournaments. We fly all over the country. We leave tomorrow for a tournament down in San Diego, the National Hard Courts. And so we kind of went through that whole father/son arguing on the tennis court--you know--who knows better about this or that. And so I think we did so much of that through tennis, especially when he was a teenager, that now we are just solid. We are a good team. And we know that if stressful situations come up, deadlines come up, and things like that, that we can stand back to back and kind of fight off this business. So it's been great. I also reached out again, because of the history I have, I reached out to an agency, a man who brought his two sons on and I asked him, you know, what was his process and things like that. Ideally, I wanted Sean to go work someplace else for a couple years so that somebody else could train him. I don't have a training program where it was okay, week one, we're gonna do this. But as he started interviewing with some of those other companies, you know, they're like, "Hey, give us a list of all your friends and family" and alarm bells were going off. I'm like, look, I think it's much better if you just come work with me, help me service my clients while you study for your exams--he's starting his CFP--and kind of be a sales assistant type and just learn on the job. And it's been fantastic. This last year was our best year by far, for my company by far. We doubled every production number that we had. We've become much more streamlined, you know, DocuSign, and all those things that I refuse to get involved with. The Laser App--I don't have any patience for that. And so that stuff has been really helpful. And I think he's learning from me. He's normally--he's not on this call, but he's normally on every call. And every meeting, he's with me every time. Our clients get two reps instead of one. And so that's just how we're doing it. And he's funny. And so we're just having the best time.
Ed Dressel:This is fun. I'm enjoying it. I love that. You've been in the 403(b) business for a long time. What have you learned about it that has stuck out that's different than maybe a 401(k) Plan Advisor? What's the distinctive that brings value to the table? Not only in your sector, but for other advisors as well? What would help advisors do well in this industry?
Wade Murphy:Wow, that's a that's a tricky question. I think I, I'm afraid I'll be repeating myself a lot. But I think that when it comes to the 403(b), and other processes, of course, providing as much service upfront as possible. I wrote a book and in that book, one of the things that I talk about is the good advisors will let you leave. You know, we don't do anything, our average sales process is at least two meetings before we get to where we're saying, okay, here's the portfolio that we suggest that you look at, and let's go over it. And so the first meeting is normally data gathering for the pension. The second meeting is going over that pension, that the end of that second meeting we talked about now. If you wanted to partner with us, and have us manage the investments that you told us that you have so that we could do a retirement analysis for you, this is what we would do. And if they are interested in that, well, then that starts a whole nother process where we talk about their feelings of risk, and all of those other things. So all during that time, there's a chance that the client will ghost us and leave, something will happen, "Oh, I've got a cousin that works for Thrivent. And he told me he could help or whatever." And so we just take that risk, because we want good clients with good relationships. We're not going to try to sell you the first minute we see, you slam you into something and then fix it afterward with trying to build a relationship for you. So I think that that builds a better business. And this is a partnership. They have responsibilities when they're with us. And so we're not afraid to go back to a client and say, hey, we don't think that we're a good fit because we really count on you communicating back with us. We get an agreement with them as part of our fiduciary review. Are we going to meet quarterly, semi annually, annually? You know, most of them, if they're really young, annually works great, but we say we have to meet. There's none of this thing, when we send you an email every four months saying, hey, it's time for us to have a quick conversation, it can just be a phone call. But you can't ignore that phone call. Because this is the process that we've set up. So if we have a situation where we're doing some work for a client, and they're wishy washy, then and you know, we don't deal with large clients. You know, we're not talking about every client, we have having $500,000 of assets under management. Most of our clients are educators. They're putting in $500 a month. Maybe they've got 30, 40 50,000 stashed someplace that we may be able to get to or not depending on what was done to them previously. And so it's not a huge loss for us if we tell somebody or if if somebody decides to get all this information from us, and then never talk to us again. It's not like, oh, there goes the half a year's worth of income.
Ed Dressel:So you mentioned your book, Schooled: Retirement Planning for Educators. What made you write it? How do you use it as a tool? Tell me a little bit about your book.
Wade Murphy:Yeah, this is a great topic, because I want to tell all your listeners that the book did not do what I was hoping it was going to do. So it's nice to have it. It's nice to hand out to clients like that principle that came out of his office. Luckily, we had books, and we gave them one but people don't really read books all that much. And especially that type of a book. A teacher spending their free time reading a book about investing for teachers? But I spend a lot of time on stage. I'm an improv performer. I used to do a lot of speaking for my previous job and it's a skill that I have. And so I would go to schools and I would give this talk. And it's more of a lecture kind of say, hey, look, teachers kind of can make bad clients if everyone's not doing it right. And here's what you got to do. And so it was very honest and very open. And so I had a lot of success doing it that way. But then I ran into issues with the teachers union dump schools, I'd get referred saying, "Hey, you got to see this guy's presentation. It's wonderful." And I would go to that school. And they say,"Well, who do you represent?" And I would say, "Well, I'm independent," and they go, "Oh, well, you have to represent one of these three companies, or we're not going to let you in." And like, those are captive companies that can't. And so and then COVID, and all of these other issues came up. And so I wrote the book. And I took that presentation that I gave, with all the funny stories that I would give, and things like that. And I put it in book form. And I submitted it to my broker dealer who took half of it, and you know, chopped it up, because they didn't quite get the sense of humor. And one of the things that I talked about on giving a presentation is hey, I did kind of a non-scientific study. But I'm realizing that old people like nice things. I've never really--I thought that when you got to 60, put me in a rocking chair, put a blanket over my lap and set me out on the porch, and I'll be fine. And that's just not the case. My mother-in-law just was going on a cruise. She wanted to be on the concierge floor. You're 70! Why do you need that? And so it kind of--the point of that story is when you get older, your wants for having comforts in your life, they might change a little bit, but you still want to stay at nicer hotels, you still want to maybe drive a safe car, you still want to do these things that when we're young, we think, you know, 55, I'm done. What do I need? I'm not going to be playing tennis at 55. I'll just sit and relax. And so to a compliance department, they're like, "What do you mean, you did a research?" Show you're, you know--I'm like, no, no! Aw! So that part was a little bit frustrating. But that's how the book came about. And when I first came out, I had some clients that really promoted it for me, and I sold a bunch of copies at first. And it was great, but it wasn't, and isn't the closer or the lead generation thing that I thought it was. It cost me probably$15,000 to put it together, I can't say because I don't really know if somebody read the book, and nobody's coming to my office saying I read your book, and I want to give you all my money. That has not happened. So I don't know that I've made my money back on the on the book or not. But it's fun to have. And it's it's good to, good to hand out.
Ed Dressel:Anything I've left on the table?
Wade Murphy:Financial advisors are in a difficult spot. Biden just came out the other day and talked about junk fees, and how, you know, they're looking at changing the laws with all of that stuff. And I know that the lobby is going to come out and fight anything that he comes up with. But one of the things that really struck me when I was working for that, that marketing company that designed annuities, is that we would work with insurance companies, and our actuarial staff and their actuarial staff would work to create a product that would fit within the rules that the government set up to how we could design annuity products. Then we would go to each state and get that product approved. And I know all the advisors listening who happen to sell annuities know that whatever state you're in, they'll say,"Hey, we got this great annuity. It's not approved in your state yet, but we're going through that process." Well, I was part of the team that would go through that process with each state. And so it's interesting that the government could kind of come back to us and say, "How dare you sell the programs that we approved for you to sell?" And so to me, that just seems interesting that when I go to a school, for example, I don't work with clients at LA Unified School District. It is one of the largest school districts. If somebody refers me an LA Unified client, I say, I'm sorry. I just--there's nothing because not only do we offer programs that are approved by the government within the government's overall language, and then approved by each state's Department of Insurance, there's a further approval that goes on because every school district in California, and I know Texas, because I work in both states, has a list of approved companies and products that you can offer. And so we're really restricted to that. And 99% of those are annuity programs. And some of them have higher fees. But the low fee programs that I'm able to offer in other school districts, for example, aren't approved at LA Unified, and so we're in a difficult spot as advisors. I remember the B-shares. We know when B-shares were big thing the wholesalers came out, "Hey, we have B-shares instead of offering a load. B-shares, B-shares!" And so I was new in the business, everybody's selling B-shares, hey, the B-shares! And then a couple years later, they come out and they go "You were selling B-shares? How dare you?" And you're like, "Well, wait, this was sold to us as a way to solve the load issue." So it's an interesting part of the business.
Ed Dressel:Yeah, especially when the long term perspective you have and that you remember what they said yesterday was a great product and today, you're the devil for selling it. Wade, I really appreciate your time. It's been a delight to talk to you. It's been nice to know you 34 years. You're one of the few advisors that have stopped by my office and we've gotten to know each other a little bit more. I look forward to seeing you at various conferences and I absolutely wish you the best. Thank you for taking the time today.
Wade Murphy:Thank you for the opportunity and yeah, it's just been a joy and just the the friendship and the relationship that I have with everybody at RetireReady is just amazing. You guys make me look so good and so smart, because here we're The Pension Geeks, but a lot of times we say hey, we'll get back to you and I pick up the phone and talk to Brian or somebody back there and "Say help us out. We can't figure this out!" And so it is a very valued relationship for me and my practice. Thank you.