Hello and welcome. It is Mr. Stillman's Opus. John Stillman here with you as always, joined today by a very special guest. We've dialed up the Skype machine and Kurt Arsenault joins us from what? Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Is that right, Kurt?
You know what? I'm at my home today, so I'm from Wooddale, Illinois today. Wooddale, Illinois.
There you go. Well, I had the right state at least. If you hear airplanes in the background, it's because I'm close to the airport. That would be O'Hare or Midway? Yes, sir. O'Hare.
O'Hare. Okay. Very good.
If we hear a plane, we'll know. What I should say about Kurt is he's now a financial professional about to move to the Atlanta area. Is that right, Kurt?
That's correct. Atlanta, Georgia. Probably Alpharetta area.
We have small kids, so good school districts up there. So you'll be working face-to-face with clients just as I do, but prior to this, you've been working as a coach for other advisors, right? And you did that for how many years? I've been doing that up until recently for the last 15 years.
Okay. So I'm interested in your perspective on sort of the different world views that different advisors have, because there are some people out there who are really good advisors, good at putting together a plan, caring about their clients, meeting their goals. And then there are people who are product salesmen. And some of the product salesmen are good at disguising the fact that that's all they are.
Some aren't as good at disguising it. But what I'm hoping you can do is give us some insight. How can the consumer tell if they're dealing with somebody who's just a salesman versus a good advisor? So let's start with the good advisors.
What are the characteristics that you'd be looking for in somebody like that? So what I did before this call, I actually looked up in Wikipedia under good advisors and it just popped up your picture. So simple as that. Your name and we're good. So just follow what John says. Appreciate you being on the podcast this week, Kurt. We'll talk to you again next week.
Oh man. What I would say is there's about five characteristics that I was really looking for when I was looking for a good advisor. The first thing is I was trying to find out how trustworthy they were. I think trust is the major factor in determining who you're going to work with. So would that person stick to their word where they keep their promises? You know, what kind of charisma did they have? That would create the trust when I was looking for an advisor that may work with us. Second thing I would always look for is how open are they to looking at new and learning new opportunities?
It was a big deal. You know, can I go out and get another degree? Can I go out and get another designation? What can I do to take my level of knowledge to another level? And then you have holding themselves to a high standard, you know, find a way to meet those tough goals. They're always expect the best out of themselves, just creating a very high standard for themselves and the people around them. And then the last two are really an excellent listener. It's very important to listen to kind of like you are right now, John, just listening to me and not saying anything. And then action oriented, not enough to simply have great ideas. You know, you really need to have some kind of action behind a plan. What are you guys going to do next for that client? You know, are you going to take it into action or are you just going to hand it off to your junior advisor and let him handle it all? Being involved at all aspects is very important and being a good advisor. So if you're meeting with an advisor for the first time or the second time, how can you tell?
How can you grade them on these areas? That might be a little harder to know just on the surface. I mean, I guess there are some things like, do they keep their word or not? That's pretty easy to tell. Like they say in the first appointment, all right, I'm going to do this for the second meeting and then they haven't done it. Well, that's a red flag.
Exactly. That'd be a red flag. I think the other parts of that are you can check on an advisor, you can go to the FINRA website, see if they have any complaints behind them. Those are ways you can find out if they're really telling the truth, find out what's in their background if you want to go that far. But I think it's really going to come down to trust your gut. I think that we all have a good barometer of trust and how that relates to our lives.
So if you trust your gut, I think you'll you'll do just fine. Ask around. You know, some people are working with those people. So referrals are always tough to ask for. If you ask an advisor, hey, can I have a few referrals?
Well, do you think he's really going to give you some bad ones? Right. So, you know, ask around.
Look on LinkedIn. It's a social world now. So you can find out a lot of information about people. What about the advisors who are just salespeople? How do you identify that person pretty quickly where it's OK, I'm just being sold a product here.
There's no real retirement plan being constructed for me. Yeah. So one of the questions we always asked in training guys, we always said to start with, hey, what brought you in to see me today? And that opened up a good dialog to find out what what's happening in that person's life.
If somebody comes in and just starts with their agenda in regards to, hey, you came in, you attended my seminar, you heard my radio show, you sent in a lead, you want to hear about news. Let me tell you about this annuity. Well, I don't even know if this annuity fits this client. You know, it could be a different annuity with a different company.
So being pushy is a definite red flag right away. I always say forcing squares through those round holes, you know, annuity isn't the right answer. But the guy hasn't asked enough information from the client. And then when he does get to that information, he tries to still force an annuity down that person's throat or life insurance down that person's throat or manage money down that person's throat, even though it's not a good fit for them. You know, they may be 80 years old and having money in the market may not be a good idea for them.
So trying to force things on people is not a good, good idea. Somebody who does the bait and switch, you know, you send out some marketing and when they come in, you don't even talk about that. You know, I see a lot of things where it's like, Hey, get a 4% CD rate. Well, they come in and you try to sell them something else and not as a CD. I think those are the main things really, honestly, that's what I see a lot in the industry, the bait and switch kind of thing. I think that would cover most bad salespeople. Well, so if you're in a meeting with somebody and it's very apparent that, okay, I'm just being sold a product here. Are there questions you should ask to try to clarify for sure?
Okay. Does, are there any other tools in the tool belt here or have I walked into a Honda dealership and hoped that they'll sell me a Toyota? The first thing I would probably ask is, are they a fiduciary?
You know, that that's somebody that's held to a higher standard. If somebody is still trying to shove something down your throat you should definitely ask if it's been cooked all the way. Really, if you're, if you feel like you're being pressured into buying something, you know, you just tell people, look, you tell that advisor, that salesperson, you know what, I think we need to take a step back. I'm not here to buy anything today.
I really want to get to know you, get to know who you are. And I think we started off on the wrong foot. So it's your option to stay there or leave. But calling people out on the rug, so to speak, is very important. What are the common types of things that are going to get sold as products? You mentioned annuities, life insurance. I mean, if you're dealing with somebody who's really peddling a product, what are some of those other candidates likely to be? Annuities and life insurance being two of them.
Yeah. Annuities, life insurance, long-term care, disability. There's some long-term care alternative products out there that act as annuities or life insurance as well as long-term care. Final expense insurance, funeral trusts, Medicare supplements. You know, there's a lot of products out there, mostly insurance products. When you get into the managed money products, you may see some REITs trying to be pushed, doubtful that they're going to push stocks on you unless you're going to a Merrill Lynch or somebody like that where they're selling their own products and don't have the full gamut of products that are available or stocks or mutual funds, that kind of stuff. So it's really watch out for insurance products.
They have their fit. I'm a big believer in insurance products. You just have to be careful of somebody that's trying to put a lot of your money into insurance products because they are contracts. Mutual funds, too. There is a mutual fund store, right? What do you think they're trying to sell you?
Mutual funds? Is that your question? I think that's what they do. I think that's what they do.
Sounds like a question on the 65 exam test. Exactly. So just wanted to give a little insight there to the industry because it just concerns me how many people say they have an advisor and they don't have an advisor, they have a salesperson.
And so many people don't know the difference and it drives me crazy. Yeah. A lot of people do have salespeople. They're just working with their Northwestern mutual guy, their MetLife guy, and they're just selling a product. And the answer is always, oh, get more life insurance. Not that simple in the real world, folks.
So keep that in mind. Kurt, really appreciate it. Good to talk with you. Hey, man. Good talking to you. Long time no talk and let's stay in touch and do another one of these. We'll do it again sometime. That's Kurt Arsenault. This is Mr. Stillman's Opus. We'll talk to you next week.
