Building A Multigenerational Team

Mike Ankers is joined by Joe Di Brita and Ashlyn Vivian from Fairway Wealth Management to discuss the team’s approach to building a multi-generational practice. Fairway has long helped families plan for the future, and manage up to four generations of a family. To do this important work, they employ various generations of Advisors and team members to address the unique needs of clients, no matter their age.

In this episode, we showcase two important members of the Fairway team and discuss how they’re helping various generations of clients, learning what’s important to them and catering to their needs. We also discuss the importance of building a multigenerational practice and the long-term benefits to both the clients and the team.

National Bank Financial - Wealth Management (NBFWM) is a division of National Bank Financial Inc. (NBF), as well as a trademark owned by National Bank of Canada (NBC) that is used under license by NBF. NBF is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF), and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NBC, a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: NA).

The opinions, endorsements, and recommendations expressed in my profile do not necessarily reflect those of National Bank Financial. This site and electronic communications will be monitored by National Bank Financial for compliance purposes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Welcome to partnering with great people, a podcast by Fairway Wealth Management and National Bank Financial. Guided by the mission of partnering with great people to preserve and grow generational wealth, this podcast highlights the partnerships that are important to the team and who ultimately make a big difference in the lives of Fairway's clients. At Fairway, they believe great advice evolves with you across every stage of your life and every generation of your family. Today I'm joined by Joe DeBrita and Ashlyn Vivian, two advisors who are helping bring that philosophy to life. They play a key role in the multi-generational approach of the team, ensuring clients receive advice that reflects what matters most to them, whether they're building wealth, protecting it, or planning their legacy. In this episode, we'll explore how different generations think about wealth and why having the right voices at the table leads to better outcomes for family. Everyone is drawn to wealth management for a different reason. Some like investment, some like insurance, and some like the planning side of things. But everybody has a why they're here. Ashley, I'm gonna start with you. Why wealth management for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

So I remember so vividly the first day of my personal financial planning class. I've talked about this before, but just knowing that was exactly what I wanted to do. And since I've come into this career, I've realized that that's because I love being a trusted partner for our clients. And really it's about confidence. And if we're able to bring clients a little bit more peace at night, knowing that they have a team of trusted partners in their corner to help them through every piece of their life where money touches on buying a house. It touches on putting your kids through school, it touches on caring for aging parents. If we can be there for you through every moment of that and uh provide a little peace of mind, then that's what makes it worth it at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

So for you, it's a people business, not a money business.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah. Joe, what about you? Yeah, my story I think is interesting. I was in university during the financial crisis. Originally thought I wanted to be a teacher. And as the years went on, I got really fascinated by what was happening in the US market and in the world and decided when I graduated that I would try and get a job in the only industry or the hardest industry to get a job. But the main reason was I felt like there was a disconnect with Canadians and what they knew about wealth management and finance. And so I took that experience where I wanted to be a teacher, was able to bring it to wealth management. And now I teach every day. I just teach about money, though. So I've kind of taken my passion, the markets, finance, and teaching, brought them all together and bring that to my clients every day.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

That's really interesting. I worked with a guy who was very successful and he started off his career as a teacher and he drew the parallels of educating, right? It's meeting clients, it's figuring out what's meaningful to them and educating them all the way through.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

And education in Canada around finance, we all know is a problem. So we just try and educate our clients one at a time. And we're fortunate uh that they're able to bring in their families and learn from us as well, which is why we're here today.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

I love that. I know regularly in my personal life, I get asked questions and from all different ages, but I'm always surprised at just how simple some of the questions are. And that's not a judgment call on the people that are asking me questions. That's more of a, to your point, just a lack of education around it. But Ashon, you said it best too, there's a lack of confidence around money. And I think that that's what people really need a good advisory team for. And what I love that Fairway Wealth Management is building is a multi-generational practice. And we're gonna really dive into that today. But Joe, you came on as, I'm gonna say, the next generation. So we refer to the founders like Reg Paul and Adam because they started the businesses and built them from the ground up, but they now needed another generation to join the practice. So, what does that mean for you? And tell me a little bit more about that strategy.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah, it was a fascinating time to join the team over 10 years ago now. I think we were maybe seven or eight people. And we recently had an advisor retire. We had an advisor in Waterloo, Zach in Toronto, and us here in London. And I felt like I was brought on to think about the next generation of clients. So I started as an associate, kind of learned everything from the ground up. I learned the process, I learned how the business worked. And I would say, after a couple of years, started dealing with my first client, which was one of our clients' children. And so it's been fascinating over the last 10 years. The 20 and 30 year olds that I started working with have turned into 30 and 40-year-olds who are right in the heart of their careers and their business building. And so I got to learn from Reg and Paul, who did that when they started the business, and they were able to be my mentors to help with the next generation of our clients. And now it's fascinating getting to work with Ashlyn. She's starting to do the same thing. So the founders started something, instilled a lot of ideas in us, but let us sort of grow and learn along the way with the right guidance, which has us here today.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

I think what's really impressive about the team as well is they don't think that they've figured out the only way to do it and that there are other perspectives, which is where you come in. And now you're mentoring the next generation of advisor. Ashland, you bring a lot to the table. I've gotten to know you as you worked with the team. And like Joe and I, you started as an associate learning the business from the ground up. I'm one of the old people in the business now, but I'm always fascinated by what the next generation brings in terms of knowledge. But what's important to your generation when it comes to wealth management?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, so this is a great question. And I think it's something that's often misconstrued with older generations. I think that my generation has grown up in the time of information overload. And we've grown up where we talked about it today, there's so much noise. And the noise means headlines, it means economic crises, it means a global pandemic, just so many uncertainties. And I think going through all of that, people really want the attention of someone who's looking at their situation, who is a human on the other side of the line that's able to provide them that sort of confidence and comfort that you will be able to achieve your goals one day. And on the other side, we've also grown up in an age of instant technology. We've grown up where you had a device in your pocket to give you an answer as soon as you needed one. So technology access, being able to see your accounts on your phone, being able to get an answer as soon as possible, has become way more important to my generation than previous generations.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Do you think, and this is only a personal observation, but a lot of young people I talk to, I'm talking late teens, even early 20s, the way they look at investing, I look at it as gambling. Because of their access to technology, they can pick up a device and buy and sell a stock in a second, usually for free. Whereas what we do is we provide a thoughtful approach to wealth management and put together portfolios for clients that meet their goals, et cetera. Do you see that as a challenge, this access to technology and thinking long term?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

It can be a challenge because there's two ways that the younger generation really takes it on. I've seen and talked to clients who steer into the skid with this a little bit and decide to go very, very risk-on and take on these approaches with different Reddit stocks or, you know, Wall Street bets, that sort of thing. And because they have things like a DIY account and Chat GPT, they think they know everything. And on the other side, there's a group of people in my generation who think they know nothing and are never gonna achieve their milestones and goals. So they kind of put their hands up and lean back and say, I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't think I'm ever gonna get anywhere. So the challenge is steering those two groups into the area of keep it simple, start with building good habits and move things forward without thinking you know too much or know too little in an age when everything around you is so overwhelming that it's hard to make sense of where you're actually at.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Such a timely question, if I can add on to it. So just prior to this podcast, Ashley and I were actually doing a lunch and learn for a local business. They asked us to come in and talk about the basics of wealth management, planning, and finance. And when we walked in, there was two gentlemen talking about their SpaceX and scan disk investments. And I was thinking, man, like the presentation that we might have created here is just way too basic. But then we started doing our presentation, and the first question is, what's a TFSA? You know, the next question is this FHSA thing. Like we haven't really heard of this before. So I think that there's like a level where people think they know and they hear about the SpaceX IPO that happened, you know, a week and a half ago. And that's what they're talking about with their friends, but nobody's actually talking about the important stuff, like long-term compounding growth and putting a plan in place that's easy to follow and just be consistent. Right. So I think what you said about your generation, I think my generation too. Sometimes they think they know what they want. We're here to help them get to where they want to be. So again, it was just neat. We did that this morning and your question resonated.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Because no news event starts around TFSA knowledge. Exactly. It starts around something exciting. Yeah. And you know, since you got into the business and you talked about the financial crisis, and that was an incredibly difficult time. I was an advisor then and wearing the weight of the world on your shoulders literally as things are falling apart to now what's been an unstoppable bull run in the market since. So, what have you seen changed over those years?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Good habits, bad habits? I think both. Okay. I think the rise of passive investing and ETFs is the good change. The investment world has been made far more open. So the average person can get access to great ETFs and great companies at a very low price, and there's not the barriers that there used to be. So there's things like the Canadian couch potato portfolio and as I mentioned earlier, passive investing. Like if you are the type of person who can control the urges to do something every day, these types of investments are perfect. And that's kind of how we run our portfolios, is we tailor them to your needs and we make them approachable and understandable. I think that's the good stuff. Uh on the other side of it, we've certainly seen gambling in the markets become very prevalent. Um, you know, you mentioned Wall Street bets earlier. You know, there's millions of people going to Reddit every day to look at the next hot stock idea, which ultimately ends up getting followed up by somebody whose account went to zero because they just discovered options for the first time and it's easy to trade, right? So when you take down the barriers to investing, it's allowed this world to become easier, but also more complicated. So I think that having like the guiding hand in your investing journey has become way more important because even though it's easier, you might hear all these different things and just not know where to begin. So it's easier, but it's more complicated. And we're here at Fairway to try and make it as simple as possible by building that plan and having you stick to it through the ups, the downs, the market noise. Think about everything that's happened since 2020, like, you know, let alone the financial crisis. I mean, true, you know, we've had multiple market pullbacks, we've had situations where we just didn't think that we were going to come out of this. Five years later, markets are at all-time highs. And had you been worried about everything or not had someone guiding you along the way, I mean, the results could be catastrophic.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Ashlyn, every generation comes with people who have a story behind how they think about wealth and money. And, you know, I know I do, and I'll speak for Joe when I say he does. But what does your generation think about money and wealth that's different from previous generations?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

So I think this comes down to the relationship that my generation has with certainty. With our parents and grandparents' generation, it was pretty clear the path. You go to school, you get married, get a stable job, work, put your kids through school and retire. And everything felt very clear. Even though maybe there were setbacks and milestones along the way, that felt like a successful life. Now, my generation has been through so many different once-in-a-lifetime events in the first 10 years of adulthood that things don't feel as clear whether our next 50 years look the same as our parents. So there's definitely that dichotomy there of what our lives look like going forward. And that's why it helps to work with someone who's a professional to be able to say, yes, you can achieve your milestones. You can own a home, even though you know we've seen massive housing crises. You can have the opportunities to achieve the goals that you set out to achieve. Even though things might look a little different than how they were, we can still plan out a path that looks the same. And even if you never want to think about your investments, you know, it's too overwhelming. At least when you talk to a professional, you can outline this is what I want, and you can understand that your goals are feasible.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Do young people want an advisor? And that's a loaded question.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

I was about to say that's a loaded question.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Because so many people I know want virtual relationships. They don't want to talk to people. They might not be able to talk to people. And I don't say that disparagingly, but this world is becoming more and more digital and more and more isolated. So does the next generation want advisors, or are you here to talk to them about the value of getting one?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I think I talk to a lot of people who value advice because they've been raised to value advice. Because we have a lot of younger clients that are the next, even third or fourth generation of the relationship between our team and their family. And because of that, they value advice in a different way. They've also learned from their parents. They understand what they know and they don't know. And that's such a great point of starting the conversation early, understanding that financial literacy for your young kids is so important because then they'll value when they get a little older that it does help to have a guiding hand. So to answer your question, maybe a lot of the people that are in my generation, they don't have a standing relationship with any advisors. They don't know any, they've never talked to any. They might not value advice as much, but are they getting the same outcomes? Maybe not, because they're relying on things like ChatGPT, Reddit, and do it yourself investing, where they're really picking everything by themselves. And we talked about it earlier, but we did a lunch and learn today for a group of people. And one of the first questions is what is a TFSA? What is an FHSA? These are questions that your ChatGPT can answer in two seconds, but you might never have asked them because you don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

That's a good point. And I love that about financial education. It's something that I'm trying with my girls. They have no interest yet, but it's interesting as they're getting older and getting credit cards and doing this sort of things. Questions are coming up naturally. And I love it when they ask them. But we try to make a point in our family to actually have conversations around money and what does a mortgage look like and what does a line of credit look like, and all of these different types of things that they will need to know at some point. Joe, I have a question for you. What should families be talking about when it comes to wealth management, when it comes to financial planning and things like that? Like, where do they start with this? Because it is such a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

I'm going to speak to this from someone who's my age and kind of in, they call that messy middle. You have kids, but you're also have aging parents. So I think, you know, if I look at my parents, like we didn't talk about money growing up, right? And that might have been a byproduct of their parents. Whereas, you know, I would say entering this industry, I learned very early on that sharing was important. So if I focus on me and my parents, if you will, or my parents' generation, I'll let Ashlyn focus more on what you should be talking with with your kids. I think that the most important thing that you can do is find a way to make your finances easy and easy to find the information. Okay. I think of my grandparents, you know, when they passed away, uh, we grew up in Sarnia. Uh, my grandpa had a bank account at every bank in the city, right? It was just the way it was. You didn't put all your money in the same place. So it took a long time to resolve that estate. And years later, we were getting things in the mail that a GIC matured, or, you know, it was complicated. So one of the things that we actually developed here at Fairway is the peace of mind document. And what this is, and I love what Paul's done with it. When he's traveling, he takes out his peace of mind document and he'll write things down that he thinks his family might need to know. So I've copied that and I share that with my clients as well. So you don't necessarily have to give your kids all of the information, but you have to make it easy for them to find it. So in this document, who's your financial advisor? Who's your lawyer? Who's your accountant? Where are your accounts? You know, and then you can even get into more detail. Why did you do the things that you did? Why did you set up the trust that you have? Where do you want your money to go and what charities should benefit? So there's an open communication. I think of Tom Deans, who we've mentioned on a lot of podcasts before. He's always said that a lot of people find out what's in a will for the first time when they're sitting in the lawyer's office, the lawyer opens it, and surprise, this is what's happening. But think of the gift you can give your family by telling them I've given money to this church, to this charity, to this special cause my whole life. And I want to continue to do it. And in my will, I'm going to continue to do that, and you can help me do that. You have to just have a certain level of communication that you're comfortable with. But once you start talking about money, it just keeps going and compounds and compounds. So be open, be honest. And I think the easier you can make it, the better, right? This doesn't have to be complicated. Open, honest, and easy.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

And I love that answer for a lot of reasons because I think you really highlighted all the positives. What if the challenge is that somebody in the family won't talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah. And we've come across that. You do the best you can. And this is the wonderful thing about the peace of mind document. This is you writing down this information for your kids, or your kids writing down this information for you or whoever. You don't necessarily have to talk about it, but you know where it is. But I do find, you know, if there's someone in your family who maybe is less interested in talking or less interested in finance, bring them into a meeting. And we don't have to talk about everything that's on the balance sheet or in your portfolios. We talk about one little thing. Maybe it's this is the RESP that we set up for you and it's going to help pay for school. There's something that clicks eventually. It might not happen in that meeting, might not happen in the next meeting. But it's just like with your kids when you're driving in the car and they just all of a sudden ask you a question out of the blue. It's not out of the blue. It's been building for years and years and years. So I think bring them in, sit down with us, let's start the conversation. You just don't know where it's going to go.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Ashlyn, what's one conversation that every family you think should have, but probably isn't?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

So I think that the parents generation, especially as you get your children are getting older, they're in their teens. You need to have an open conversation and an open dialogue about how you view money, not necessarily which investments to pick, not which accounts they should open the day they turn 18, but about how you view money, saving, spending, bills, debt, all of the things that you've learned and accumulated over your life. Because that's what's going to set them up for the greatest chance of success when they become adults and have to start making decisions on their own. And you have to trust that they're making the right decisions without you watching over their shoulder. So you might not be able to teach them exactly what to do in every single financial situation, but you can teach them how to think about it. Because everyone is going to grow up and take on some sort of view on money. Everyone is going to take on their own philosophy and psychology, whether they're a spender or a saver, whether they're a very risky investor or totally risk-off. Everybody is going to develop that sense on their own. You can be the first influencer into your children's life and their financial decisions. And that can help set them up for the greatest chance of success in the future.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

That's a fantastic answer. So you're talking about not just family values, but money values.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

So I can't wait till Graham's 18 years old and reminiscing on the balance sheets that we've reviewed at the dinner table. You know, those are going to be some of his earliest memories, right? So, you know, hopefully I'm instilling this world in him. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

It does work. I've talked on previous podcasts. So we do a family meeting every year. And every year I show the balance sheet, but it wasn't until my first daughter went to college that she realized how great that RESP was to have. And I've said it before, but she goes to school and sees kids that have to pay their own way because maybe mom and dad didn't save for it. Maybe mom and dad couldn't save for it. And it was the greatest day when I got a call and she said thanks. So that was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Joe, what's your favorite thing as an advisor boat dealing with several generations? Such a good question. And I think about this all the time. And I'm so excited the way the fairway structure is set up. We deal with three and four generations of our clients' families. And now I would say we have three or four generations of advisors working on the team. So, you know, it's hard to pinpoint the most important thing, but if I had to pick one thing, it's going to be the longevity of the story or the continuation of the story. So we know why the grandparents did something and we can explain that to the grandkids. We know why the family farm was sold and the money went into a trust. We know why the parents are donating to a specific charity or set up a charitable trust. So you're able to explain to a future generation why the matriarchs or patriarchs of the family did what they did. And you just don't have that information if you are not working with a multi-generational advisor practice. And it's really neat. So I remember early on, Reg and Paul would bring me into a meeting to meet the next generation, and we would do sort of joint meetings for years. And then eventually I would start dealing with the kids who are entering their careers and, you know, now they're saving and they're in their peak earning years. And I'm really excited about their kids being older and I can do the same thing. You know, hopefully Ashley and you'll join some of those meetings with me, right? But I think it's really exciting to see one family continue to have success generation after generation. And that just goes back to what you said, you know, sharing the philosophies and the best ideas with money with each generation. We're seeing it play out with our clients, and it's amazing to see.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

I love those stories to be able to pass that along because again, maybe families haven't had those conversations, but long after grandma and grandpa are gone, maybe you're still talking about what they meant to them. I know early on in my career, I met a lot of, I'm gonna say our more senior clients. They were business owners, and I started in Toronto, and they had modest businesses, but massive real estate wealth. And it was fascinating to see because their kids had no idea. And going through those some of those conversations, and I learned so much in those years from these people who just worked hard, packed their lunch every day, and ended up very, very wealthy. And uh I really, really value that. I didn't have that guidance from anybody in my family. So that was um, I got it all from learning from clients of different generations.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And this business is all about experience, right? So you learn from your clients, you learn from your peers. The more time you spend in this business, the more you learn. And then you're allowed to share that with the people that you work with. It just goes back to teaching, right? It's we're here to impart knowledge and it's an amazing position to be in.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

And to add on to that, I feel as someone coming in as the third generation of advisor on this team, that I'm learning as a mosaic of all the advisors before me, because everyone that's ahead of me in that generation has learned from the generation before, but also interpreted their own experiences from their clients. And it's created this shared values and culture system within our team that I learned so much from Joe, and Joe learned so much from Reg and Paul. But that's all created one big system that I get to learn from. So that's where that kind of depth, the team depth really comes into play when it comes to our next generation people and advisors, not just me, but a whole team of people that are learning from that long experience.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

I get so excited when I see Rob Watson at a dinner because I know he's going to teach me something. Yes. Like it's just, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

It is true. And you've got a great group of people who are always learning. There's always those generations that get to a point where they just think they've got it all figured out and want to just impart education on you. What I find this team is very open about learning from everybody else. How do we approach this better? I've learned more from this team than a lot of people in my life. And I'll never forget during the financial crisis in 08 that Joe was talking about. And I went to Reg's office. I was an advisor at the time. I'm stressed to the hilt. And he's like, I go, what advice do you have for me? And he goes, Do something. And it wasn't profound until later, but it was stress comes from things you can't control. So what can you control right now? Can you update a plan? Can you buy something? It was just do something. And it's those nuggets that still come back to me in conversations all these years later. But getting into the reality of the situation, can you share a success story about how maybe the team's helped a multi-generational family or the way that the team has a multi-generational advisor set has helped people?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

So I think that this comes into play not only just on the next generation side, but it also comes into play when you have the older generations as well as, you know, your messy middle and your younger kids. Because when things happen and the older generation can't take care of their own accounts, maybe they become incapacitated, they need help, they're aging. Having the younger generation there provides an extra level of access. It provides simplicity. You know who you're talking to. A lot of times we have an older generation, a middle generation, and a next gen that all work with one or two advisors within the team that work very closely together. And because of that, you can manage everything when something happens and make the unimaginable situations where an aging parent has become incapacitated, maybe they have a stroke or have developed dementia. You can make that a little bit more bearable because the finances feel controllable.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Building trust as well is something that happens when you work with a number of different families through the generations as well. And that trust is so important. Can I provide one example as well? Oh, yeah, yeah. So I would say a lot of our clients, they've had four great years in the markets. They look at what's going on with their kids. They're struggling with housing, they're struggling with careers, and they've got the ability to help them. So we've seen, I would say, especially in the last two years, a lot of parents who've been able to give their kids money, which in turn is allowing them to buy a home. We can make the connections to the banks to get their mortgage, but we facilitate everything, right? And that level of trust allows them to feel comfortable that the money is going to go where it's intended to go and for the purpose it was intended for. And we're there to facilitate that.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Goes back to your opening comments about peace of mind and having confidence and things like that. And that sounds exactly to me what the benefit is on many fronts. I've got a lot more I want to talk about. And one is the benefits to you as business owners. So what people may not realize is that advisors are business owners. And as business owners, and I've worked with advisors on this specific topic for many, many years, their big concern is when can I retire? And often the biggest challenge to that is who will ever care as much as I have about these people who have become so close to me, they're so important to me, and I've looked at them for generations. And I want to say kudos to you because you're solving that problem for advisors. If anything happens to someone on this team, yes, we'll miss that person, but families still have the same support that they had before. So kudos to you. What you're doing from a business owner perspective is also very, very admirable, but also important. I've been a part of a place where advisors have prematurely passed away with no succession plan in place. And what's interesting is the psychology of the client is this. On day one, they say, I lost my friend and advisor because I'm calling on behalf of the firm and they say, take your time. I'm just gonna mourn. By day four, they're calling looking for a new advisor. Because when you're not in the seat, they think their money's going somewhere, right? Nobody's looking after it anymore. And whereas this team, Joe, if you even take a vacation, somebody's still there and looking after it. So that's a big benefit that I see that you're bringing to clients from a completely different perspective.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah, agreed. It's the continuity of the advisors, but also the continuity of the way we manage money and the plans we have in place. Because we have systems in place, we're operating in a very similar way with our own flavors, but that's what makes us unique and interesting. But I agree completely. I mean, you probably answer the phone when I'm out of the office and you can help the client that's on the phone. We all do it for the other advisors in the office. It's just such a benefit to being part of a team.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Ashlyn, one last piece of wisdom here. How does involving the next generation help improve client outcomes? So if I'm a client and I want to bring my kids in, what's the benefit to me?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

So I want to touch on this from the angle of the child first.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Great.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

We talked a lot about the value of advice and the children of people who value advice so much more. But it's the fact that a lot of the clients that we work with that are younger generations don't necessarily qualify for the type of advice that we can give purely because we have minimums to come into a team and that you have to be a certain account size. But we've opened the door to the next generation. Come and work with the person that gives your parents advice. And that gives them the opportunity to come in and to benefit from that outcome where they get to put everything in the same place where their parents give their trust. And, you know, it works out really well for clients on a fee basis. It works out really well for clients on the continuity of the story. And those younger generations, when you've given them the tools like the access to work with the same advisor that you do, you've given them the access to your psychology and why you think about money in a certain way, you're just setting them up to have a better experience with investing, with wealth management and have a better outcome in the long term.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

I like that. Kids get access to advice that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. Exactly. Yeah. Joe, do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I think experience is just the perfect way to put it. The first investing experience you have might shape the rest of your investing career. So if your first experience is buying a stock that you didn't research and it goes to zero, well, this is hard and I'm not going to do it anymore. That's not an experience we want anyone to have. So having someone be able to come in the door who wouldn't otherwise be able to get in, because let's face it, like you said, banks put minimums on account sizes and whether we agree with it or not, it's the nature of the business. But having a parent being able to bring their child in and they can say, Should I buy company XYZ? And we say, Well, why don't you tell me a little bit about it? We probably can look a little closer at it and see that maybe this isn't your first investment. So that whole idea of having someone to bounce ideas off to make this experience so much better, I think it's the most important thing when you're starting off.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

I can see that. It's just making people aware of what risk they're taking. No young person buying a stock thinks of the loss.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Exactly. Well, and on the other side, too little risk is another problem. And I remember, again, maybe this is just based on my age, but I remember a lot of my friends wanting to take no risk. They saw their parents suffer in 2008, 2009. They heard about the tech wreck that happened 10 years prior. Investing in stocks is risky. So I know so many people who opened their tax-free savings account and they saved money in a high-interest savings account. Pretty hard to reach your goals unless you have a massive income making 1%. So too little risk can be just as risky as too much risk. And, you know, that's why we're here to build that plan and build the right portfolio that helps you reach your goals.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

Awesome. Guys, this was a great conversation. I've learned a lot, even though I know you both quite well. I love the perspective you shared on things like access and education. I think those are two very important things to take away. The client benefits are great, and I would encourage any family to get their kids involved. Or alternatively, get your parents involved. It works both ways. I've known young people who have opened accounts for kids and then helped the parents get involved and help them facilitate the conversations from the other way. But so much comes of it. But again, I want to repeat my kudos to you as business owners for putting this in place because you're ensuring continuity and ensuring people can take vacations and retire, knowing that people are in good hands, but also preparing that if anything ever happens to you. So you're really putting your own planning in motion from a team perspective. So this type of thinking is inspiring to me, and it's something that single advisor teams just simply can't do, unfortunately. So kudos to you. And I want to thank you both for joining me today. And thanks for everybody for joining us as well. This has been another episode of Partnering with Great People Podcast, and we'll see you again soon.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Thanks, Mike.