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Welcome to Ditch the Suits podcast , where

0:10

we share insights nobody in the financial

0:12

services industry wants you to know about

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. We're here to help you get the most from

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your money and life , so buckle up and welcome

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to Ditch the Suits . Hey guys

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, steve Campbell , come on now somebody

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. This is episode 100

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of Ditch the Suits podcast . We

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are also celebrating , travis and I , three

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years of being podcast creators . What

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a wild journey this has been . If

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you listened to the two last episodes , we've been leading

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up to the fact that , for this 100th episode

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, travis and I would like to recognize some

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of our listeners by giving away some DTS

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swag . We've already shared some ways to enter

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, but in case you're just joining in today , there's

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ditchthesuitscom . Let us know what you've done so we

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today , travis and I will go through

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all the entries and at random pick a few

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winners and we will contact you to get you some DTS

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swag . Honestly , from Travis

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and I , we want to thank you . 2023

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was a banner year for us . We got big beliefs

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for 2024 . We couldn't

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do without all of you . We hope that you enjoy

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the last episode of this series . Good

1:51

luck if you get a chance to win and thanks for tracking along with

1:54

us . Welcome back to DTS . I

1:56

feel like I should be playing bells or chimes

1:58

or have some kind of like professional wrestler intro

2:01

music , as this is episode

2:03

number 103 years

2:05

in . We started DTS three years ago

2:07

, at the end of January , and to now have this episode

2:09

be released at exactly the same time . Right

2:12

before we came on air , I told Travis partner

2:14

we've come a long way and this

2:17

has been an exciting journey . If you're brand new

2:19

to DTS , welcome . We hope that it's not your

2:21

last stop . If you've been tracking with us for any amount

2:23

of time , please don't hesitate to reach

2:25

out to us and let us know of topics you want to hear

2:27

about , because , again , we want to share with you , just

2:30

like in this estate planning conversation , topics

2:32

that are going to really challenge maybe the

2:34

way you think or just expand your knowledge base

2:36

so that you can do something with it . So we've been

2:39

leading up this entire conversation talking about

2:41

annual reviews , taking inventory of what you have , and

2:43

a major overlooked area is estate planning

2:45

and beneficiaries . We've been leading up

2:47

to first episode talking about wills and

2:50

then episode getting into maybe a basic

2:53

, a better , and then like please don't

2:55

do this . And then in this one now we want to talk

2:57

about complex beneficiaries , because I know you

2:59

know Travis from your end as a planner this is an

3:02

area that isn't talked about , so a lot of people

3:04

don't know about it , but it's a huge aspect

3:06

of planning if you really understand and get it right

3:08

. So I'm just going to turn it over to you to talk

3:10

about what is a complex beneficiary

3:13

.

3:14

Well , steve , I would

3:16

first like to offer

3:18

my intro music from unleashing

3:20

leadership to get us pumped

3:22

up here . Because , number

3:25

one , I have a lot of fun picking out the music and

3:29

yeah , but number two

3:31

, who else can take something as boring

3:33

as beneficiaries and turn it into an hour

3:36

and a half of ? Let's hurry up and get through

3:38

this , because we're going to

3:40

try to limit it . Three episodes , I think we could

3:42

. If we got into case studies and stuff , we could

3:44

go on for hours . That's

3:46

actually what's going on in my head . I'm

3:48

tripping over myself because there's so much that

3:50

I want to say about this because I've seen so much disaster

3:53

with this . But

3:57

yeah , I mean that's . We've taken a topic

3:59

I think that most people take for granted

4:02

and I hope that we're painting a picture

4:04

about if you do this right , you

4:06

can actually do some amazing things . The will

4:08

is a very powerful tool , but it is a

4:10

tool and it's how well

4:13

you you know . If you go out to the hardware

4:15

store and you buy the cheapest tool , it's probably going to break

4:17

on you . So we really want

4:19

to think about what's the

4:21

utility of this tool and how

4:23

do we need it designed , and let's

4:25

make sure that we think about things

4:27

. You know , let's

4:30

just make sure that we've got some

4:32

perspective on this and that gives

4:34

us the complex beneficiary , which is a

4:36

type of it's

4:39

internal terminology that we use . Basically

4:41

, you made this up . You

4:46

have a will and you have beneficiaries Remember

4:49

the beneficiaries who precede the will , so they stop things

4:51

from actually getting into probing . But

4:54

every now and then you actually want things to do

4:56

what the will says , like you want them . Hey

4:58

, if the will says , you know

5:00

, if they're under 25 years old and they inherit

5:02

assets , put it in that . Or if you

5:05

are in a state tax threshold , you

5:07

know , put my stuff in a credit

5:09

shelter trust to preserve my exemptions

5:13

, or something like that . So every now and then there's stuff that you

5:15

want to happen in that will and

5:19

so you have an option you can either circumvent

5:22

the will completely with the beneficiaries , or you can

5:24

send it through the will and send it through probate . But

5:27

what , what ? How cool would it be if you could

5:29

actually send your

5:31

assets to the will that's , only to the part of

5:33

the will that you actually want to utilize , but

5:36

not actually do it in a probate fashion ? So

5:38

you , basically , you tell the investment company

5:41

, you say , okay , my money's over at Schwab or my money's

5:43

over at Fidelity or wherever it is , and you say , hey

5:45

, fidelity , when I die I want

5:48

you to give all my money to Steve . But first I want

5:50

you to check article three of my will , and

5:52

if article three of my will says that a trust should have

5:54

been set up for Steve , give it to the

5:56

trustee instead . And

5:59

so this is where complex comes in . But that's

6:02

complicated enough that it's not going to it's

6:05

. It doesn't work on the forms that the

6:07

investment companies or the insurance companies normally

6:09

give you , because it's this or

6:12

that type of thing or it's like hey , you know

6:14

, a lot of times you got to do percentages on your beneficiary

6:16

forms , unless it's life insurance right , life insurance

6:18

, you know exactly what the benefit is . But

6:20

if you have an investment account , you don't know what the benefit is . So

6:22

you can't go to your IRA company and say , give

6:25

$50,000 to Steve and

6:27

split the rest equally between my two kids

6:29

. And the reason why you can't do that is because they're going

6:31

to come back and say , yeah

6:34

, but what if there's less than 50,000

6:36

? We don't know what to do

6:38

. And then you look on the form and there's no place to put that on the

6:40

form . There's no place to say well , if there's not $50,000

6:42

, do this . So what do you actually do ?

6:46

Let's pause and hear a word from our sponsor . This

6:48

episode is brought to you by the One Big Thing

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podcast . If you're in the thick of life

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as a parent or a spouse and just

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trying to grow as a person , then you won't want

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to miss this show . And

7:01

I want you to pause right there and get ready for

7:03

your this , then that . Yeah

7:29

, because I'm thinking about the listener who's like

7:31

what in the world is unleashing leadership

7:33

and what's he talking about with music ? So

7:35

you prepare your part , because I do want to give a shameless

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plug . We're celebrating three years , or a

7:40

hundredth episode . We've grown as content

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creators and unleashing leadership

7:44

. We found different ways to express things we're passionate

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about . Obviously , you're here on digital suits

7:48

to get the most from your money in life , but , travis

7:50

, you are also a visionary . You love building

7:52

into our team and you started your own

7:55

solo podcast , the Daily Kick in the Butt

7:57

, if you call it 15 minutes every day and you're waiting

7:59

to work to become the best leader you can be . So

8:01

if you like Travis's tenor and tone , I

8:03

will tell you that there's some explicit language on the show

8:05

.

8:05

So if you need to feel alive . Yeah , I know you use the word butt in that show

8:08

. We don't say butt .

8:10

That's me folks . I'm the

8:12

one with four kids . But if you like a daily

8:14

dose of leadership injection , then check

8:16

out unleashing leadership . I think it's a very

8:18

cool maturation of just our passions

8:21

for reaching more people and that's

8:23

a huge component to get the most from your money in life . So

8:25

you can check that on every podcast platform . I

8:27

love this idea of this , then , that why

8:30

don't you kind of walk us through kind of the

8:32

thought pattern , if you will , behind it

8:36

.

8:36

So think of it as turn

8:38

by turn directions . All

8:41

right , so your will is kind of the instruction

8:43

manual . Right Now we're going to actually draw a map

8:45

and

8:49

what our

8:51

intention is is to help the financial or the

8:53

insurance company transition

8:56

your assets to your heirs . So this is

8:58

even less about your financial or investment person

9:00

. You're talking directly to the investment

9:02

company now , because

9:05

when you're gone , your agent or your

9:07

representative has , they have no control

9:09

anymore . The second that the insurance

9:12

or the financial , the investment

9:14

company finds out that you're passed away , they freeze the accounts

9:16

. At that point , your

9:19

person on the account , there's nothing they

9:21

can do for you other than administer

9:23

the instructions on the account . And

9:26

so really , what you're doing is you're saying I'm

9:28

going to clearly articulate to

9:30

the investment , the bank , the insurance

9:33

company . I'm going to clearly articulate

9:35

to them what I want to happen in certain

9:37

situations . And of course , they provide

9:39

you a form and you go well , there's no room on this form to

9:41

do that , and so we're

9:44

going to create additional language that

9:46

goes with that form . Basically and

9:48

this is where you have to really understand how the financial

9:51

industry works , because they'll reject

9:53

it 50 times on you . They'll

9:55

tell you there's absolutely no way they can accept certain

9:57

things . And there's certain companies like 401ks

10:00

. A lot of 401k plans will not accept anything

10:02

complicated because , again

10:04

, it's not your account , it's the 401k plan

10:06

. You just happen to have a sub-account in it and

10:09

you're going to go by their rules . So

10:11

it's a little bit daunting for somebody

10:13

who really doesn't know what they're doing . But

10:16

we're going

10:18

to , if we're good at what we're doing , we're

10:20

going to take our will . We're going to say , okay

10:22

, we've built in the contingencies and

10:25

now we're going to create this additional document

10:28

that says these

10:30

are the contingencies that

10:33

I want you to look for

10:37

if something happens to me and

10:39

something goes to this person . So I could say , well

10:42

, I'm going to leave all my money to Steve , but

10:45

if Steve and I are going in a car accident

10:47

together , then I want $50,000

10:50

to go to charity X and then I

10:52

want $5,000 to go to

10:54

Steve's wife and then I want

10:57

the rest of the money split equally between my

10:59

nephews and

11:04

I want , if a

11:06

trust has been established for any of those people

11:08

in my will , for that money to be

11:10

turned over to the trustee of the

11:13

said trust . So

11:15

like I'm going like many , many layers

11:18

down here , right , sometimes

11:22

I have seen it too , where somebody could create such

11:24

a complicated situation

11:26

that doesn't have

11:28

an answer or a resolution for certain situations

11:30

, like I've seen people list 60

11:33

different scenarios basically , but

11:36

they didn't think all the way through to the resolution

11:38

of some of them . So it's not practical , it

11:41

can't happen , because they don't

11:43

kind of close the loop , if you will , and

11:45

so there is an art to putting these

11:47

together so they can be fairly simple , like

11:50

our earlier examples . They're going to be really

11:52

, really sophisticated and

11:54

certainly not something that you're going to fill out

11:56

in a little three sentence or

11:58

a three line form that says what's the name

12:00

, what's the date of birth , what's the address , what

12:02

percentage you want to leave them . Right , you're

12:06

going . Or sometimes you'll say well , what's

12:08

the trust ? You can leave money to a trust . Well , the trust

12:11

isn't here yet , it doesn't exist . It

12:13

may never exist , right , it

12:16

may be something that never happens , but

12:18

it needs to be listed , and that's another

12:21

issue . When we go back to the will , a lot of people

12:23

think they have to rewrite their will when things happen . Like

12:25

you might

12:27

say leave assets to my kids , you

12:30

know , in a trust if they're under the age of 30 . And

12:33

then the kids are over the age of 30 . Well , do

12:35

you have to go rewrite your will or not ? No , you don't , because

12:37

they're the trust won't be triggered because

12:40

there's nobody under the age of 30 to trigger them

12:42

, right ? So it's part

12:44

of this is just understanding what stuff you got to be

12:46

worried about and what you're not . But

12:49

the complex beneficiary

12:52

can easily include things and this is where we're getting

12:54

to charities or one-off designations

12:56

or percentages that are

12:58

different . I might create a beneficiary that

13:00

you

13:03

know will list . Again

13:05

, I'm not going to list the charity and the will

13:07

, or I'm not going to list my God children and the will , but

13:09

I'm going to go on and put them on a certain account . So

13:12

maybe the charity goes on the IRA

13:14

and maybe the God child

13:16

goes on , you know , the Roth or

13:18

the after-tech , the joint account with

13:21

my spouse or something like that . Like

13:23

we're really going to think kind

13:25

of through how we're going to list people

13:28

on accounts to get the maximum value out of

13:30

the accounts , not just cut them all in

13:32

half .

13:33

Hey guys , steve Campbell with Ditch the Suits , want

13:35

to take one quick moment to make a big ask

13:38

. If you haven't already , travis and I would love

13:40

for you to subscribe to this podcast , but

13:42

if you haven't , also we would love for you to leave

13:44

a five-star rating and review . Your

13:46

rating and review will let other podcasters know

13:48

if the show is worth their time . So let's get right

13:50

back to the episode , and thanks for listening to Ditch

13:52

the Suits podcast , and

13:55

I think that's a great point to talk

13:57

out right In the last

13:59

episode , even in the first one , we talked about the role

14:01

of an attorney . Right , and

14:03

go to an attorney because you want to have something . They

14:06

are mostly going to be an order taker . You

14:08

tell them what you want to have happen and then they

14:10

draft the document . What you're talking

14:13

about is , I think so , somebody understanding

14:15

the ins and outs of your life , who and what's important

14:18

to you , and be able to come to you with ideas

14:20

of hey , remember that you said this , this

14:23

, then that Like this is where that fills in

14:25

versus somebody who , if you just

14:27

go , sit with an attorney and they take out their yellow

14:29

legal plaid and they start their little taxi cab

14:31

fare thing that they do , and then you just

14:33

start telling them like this is this and this is where

14:35

I want it to go . They're going to go , okay , great , what's

14:37

next ? It's more of just taking

14:39

inventory versus like bringing to

14:41

life what would maybe fill

14:43

in the complex beneficiary .

14:46

And I would say that because we vet attorneys

14:48

, because we recommend clients go to attorneys

14:50

all the time , and we want to make sure that they go to an attorney

14:52

who understands what we're trying to set the

14:54

client up for Right . It's not going to be fighting us and

14:56

saying , oh , you need to buy these trust or something like that . It's

15:00

clear they're coming to them with like a shopping list . This

15:03

is what I need to do at attorney and

15:05

we have some attorneys that do phenomenal

15:07

work and we have we've

15:09

got some in many different states and they'll come back to us and be like

15:11

just so you guys understand this , how this would work or this stuff , and

15:14

they actually bring really good ideas back to

15:16

the table . But one of the challenges

15:18

that you have with

15:20

anything legal is

15:23

somebody without a law degree has

15:25

to interpret it , who

15:27

maybe is going through this for the first time

15:29

ever and has very minimal

15:32

background with any of the terminology . So

15:34

we constantly have clients come back and look what

15:36

I got . We look at them and we're going this

15:38

is clearly not right and they're like but

15:41

my attorney's really good . It's like , yeah , your

15:43

attorney's really good , but you don't understand

15:46

what they're saying , so you don't know when to tell

15:48

them . That's not actually what I want

15:50

, and so I think sometimes people need an advocate

15:52

, and one of the challenges that attorneys have is I

15:55

don't want an advocate in the room that's going to

15:57

kind of push me to do something for

15:59

the client . The client doesn't necessarily want , because

16:01

from our profession you

16:03

know this is the so-called financial advisor part

16:06

of it . You got insurance

16:08

agents out there all the time trying

16:11

to get attorneys to help them close

16:13

the life insurance or the annuity sale . They're

16:17

going to the attorney with the client and they're putting

16:19

pressure on the attorney to tell the client yes

16:21

, that's a good idea , buy that insurance or buy that

16:23

annuity . And what's the attorney get

16:25

out ? And I've actually had attorneys sit in my office

16:27

and say this what

16:29

do you want me to sell for you so

16:31

that they can write the trust or write the LLC ? And

16:34

it's like holy cow

16:36

, you know , if

16:38

you're doing this right , you're

16:41

, you're the planner , and the attorney

16:43

ought to have a relationship where it's like hey

16:46

, attorney , I really appreciate the way that you do

16:48

your work and we're going to help package

16:50

up a client and send them to you and

16:52

they're going to come to you with a pretty good understanding of what

16:54

they need , and if you see something

16:56

that deviates from what we've seen

16:58

, please let us know so we can help interpret

17:02

that to the client , we can help explain

17:04

that , or maybe we can learn and we can get better so

17:06

we can set the next client up better and

17:08

let's work together on this to make sure

17:10

. And I think that's the big difference between

17:12

fee only and fee based , or fee only and commission

17:15

right , like our fees , what it is . So

17:17

what do we care ? You know if , if you want

17:19

to buy insurance or not , the only thing that we

17:21

care is if you have what you're supposed to have or

17:24

what you need to have , and so it's a it's a

17:26

different relationship , but I think it's just

17:29

. I don't want to pick too much on it because we

17:31

both have hammered the attorneys and they

17:33

rightfully deserve it , but

17:36

there are some really phenomenal attorneys and

17:38

we we we have the pleasure to work with some

17:40

of them that , I think , add an awful

17:42

lot to the process . In

17:44

the feedback that I've gotten from those attorneys

17:46

is that they really appreciate

17:49

the prepackaging , they really appreciate

17:51

the fact that we've informed the clients . The clients

17:53

understand , they go in with good questions . The attorneys

17:55

can talk to them about the legalities of things

17:58

, but it's pointed

18:00

, you know it's . It's like you know here's an issue that can

18:02

spend more time on a real issue and

18:04

less time on just basic

18:07

, very kind of trivial

18:09

things and you get

18:11

a lot less of the . You

18:14

know , and

18:16

I guess some attorneys like this because they can make money

18:18

over and over again . But I think

18:20

the good attorneys are busy and I think they want

18:22

to work on other work , right ? And so if the

18:24

the client has to come back every year to update the

18:26

charity and how much they want to leave the charity in the will

18:28

, yeah , for some attorneys they can keep making

18:30

money on that , but for the good attorneys they're like that's annoying

18:33

. You know , I don't have to do that all the time

18:35

. That's one of the benefits . That , back to the benefit

18:37

of a complex beneficiary , is if

18:41

you put charities , all those other little stuff in your

18:43

will and you change your mind , or if you say and I've

18:45

seen people do this leave my IBM

18:47

stock to my kids , well , where the heck's

18:49

the IBM stock ? What if the IBM stock is

18:51

sold Right ? Like

18:54

what if you got last ? Like late bills

18:56

and stuff you got to pay . You know , should you cash out

18:58

your IRA to protect the stock , like , what

19:00

should you do versus

19:03

going into the IBM

19:05

account just putting a beneficiary on it says leave it to the

19:07

kids and then again , if you want to put it in

19:09

trust through the will , reference

19:11

a situation in the ? You know the section

19:14

in the will to go to look at . But to

19:16

update the beneficiary designation , if I change the

19:18

amount that I want to do , or maybe I change who

19:20

I want to leave stuff to , because this happens all the time

19:22

all I got to

19:24

do is file a form , and

19:28

I mean for the most

19:30

part that's free . You know

19:32

it depends on your relationship with your advisor and stuff

19:34

or if you're doing it on your own , if you understand how to do

19:36

it , but that's normally

19:39

free or much , much less

19:41

expensive than rewriting a will . You

19:44

know , because normally the attorney is going to either

19:46

rewrite the will or you know sometimes

19:48

they'll charge you a discount just to make a quick update , because

19:50

it's the same template . But sometimes

19:52

laws have changed since then , right , so

19:55

the wills the other got to be updated into their new

19:57

pro forma kind of structure that

19:59

they're using , or your attorney

20:01

retired and the new attorney is

20:04

like I'm not touching that . Well , I didn't write it . I'll

20:06

update this for you , but you got to be out . You know I'm going to write you

20:08

my version of your will and

20:11

that's where the cost starts to come in

20:13

. So it's . And we have clients

20:16

that stuff changes

20:18

all the time . I mean it's constantly changing

20:20

. You know , there's a funny thing that happens from

20:22

your 60s to your 70s . When

20:25

you're early in your 60s , you're worried about retirement

20:27

, you're worried about having enough money . When you get to your 70s

20:29

and you're looking at these RMDs and you're going I don't

20:31

need that money , what the hell am I going

20:33

to do with that ? You start thinking a little differently about

20:36

what am I going to send to the grandkids

20:38

, what am I sending to the kids , when and how

20:40

, and that kind of stuff . And it impacts your beneficiaries

20:42

. You start thinking about charities differently

20:44

. Well , if you're

20:47

going to go back and rewrite your will every time , you're starting

20:49

to think differently . That's

20:51

kind of expensive , you know

20:53

.

20:54

Well , I was just thinking I don't want to oversimplify

20:57

it , but just maybe to give people a word

20:59

picture in their mind and you can tell me if this is

21:01

completely off base . But it would almost be like

21:03

if you wanted to . You know , put together

21:05

a dream home . Yeah , you can just go hire

21:07

a contractor and a designer . But

21:10

what if those two had the ability to work together ? That

21:12

you know you don't want to micromanage and come in and

21:14

tell the contractor how to do their job or just

21:16

knock out this wall or that wall ? But

21:19

what if you had somebody that knew your family

21:21

so well that , as the contractor was laying out

21:23

a blueprint , they were there to say

21:25

, yeah , but don't forget , this family really is

21:28

passionate or cherishes XYZ , so let's

21:30

design the living room in such a way that they

21:32

can all be together . They would say , great

21:34

, here's how we would do that . It's almost

21:36

like having two people at two advocates

21:39

working together , not trying to do each

21:41

other's job , but having somebody

21:43

from a designer standpoint that can bring

21:45

to life what's important to the family

21:47

, so that that house is exactly what they

21:49

need . You can still function it if it's not , but

21:52

just almost that tandem working together . So

21:54

, like you said , we've had some really great experiences

21:56

, you know , with attorneys over

21:58

the years and I think it's when those two things are working

22:00

together the planners understanding the situation

22:03

so well that they're bringing to light

22:05

scenarios that maybe the individual

22:07

didn't think about more . So to

22:09

let them know hey , you've said over and over this

22:11

is really important , but I think there's maybe

22:13

a lot of missing parts as to why

22:15

this doesn't always happen sometimes .

22:19

Well , you get and people listening

22:22

may have heard this before you get these

22:24

financial professionals , whether

22:26

they're accountants , cpas

22:29

, cfps , insurance

22:32

reps , financial planners , attorneys

22:35

, whatever they may say that I want to be your quarterback

22:37

, I'm going to coordinate everything for you and

22:40

that sounds really good . But

22:42

if the quarterback doesn't know all the plays , you

22:46

know , if you've got a third string quarterback and

22:48

you're a championship level team , you're

22:51

probably going to lose . And

22:53

that's one of the challenges with this is that

22:55

I do think that a lot

22:57

of people go out there and hire people and they say , well , I'm here for

22:59

your state planning , I'm going to take care of you , and

23:04

really what they're doing is they're selling whatever their product is

23:06

. I'm selling my life insurance , I'm selling my annuity

23:08

, I'm selling my investments , or I'm selling

23:10

my trust and my wills , or I'm selling

23:12

, you know , whatever you know , I mean LLCs

23:15

and all that kind of stuff and

23:19

it just it

23:22

makes it very , very difficult and that's my

23:24

biggest hope with Ditch the Suits and any of our podcasts

23:27

is that people

23:29

hear some of these things and they

23:31

go . These are the conversations I should be hearing

23:33

about . So if I'm sitting down with somebody

23:36

and I talk to them about estate planning , and they don't

23:38

talk about these things . If I say , well , what about my beneficiaries

23:40

? And they don't talk about these things , if they don't talk

23:42

about contingencies and how to use your

23:44

will in conjunction with your beneficiaries and what

23:47

stuff you might want to go through your wills , what stuff

23:49

you might not want to , and

23:51

how to coordinate with the attorney and stuff . If

23:54

you're not having those conversations

23:56

and you know you're kind of with a so-called financial

23:58

advisor , you're with somebody who

24:01

is a portion

24:03

, they're doing part of the quarterback's

24:05

job . They know some of the plays , right

24:08

, but they're not the star . But

24:10

they're trying to be the star because if I'm the star I get paid

24:12

and

24:15

think about it . I mean there's , I

24:18

don't know , hundreds of thousands of financial advisors out

24:20

there . You think they're all stars , you

24:22

know . I mean , and

24:24

you've never even asked them any questions like this , you don't know

24:26

, and they may be a star in one part of it that's the other

24:29

part of this . Like your planner might be a star

24:31

on investments . They might be a star in taxes

24:33

. They might be a star in projections

24:35

. They might be a star with disabled

24:38

, you know special needs , trusts , things

24:40

like that . But they may not be or they may be a star with

24:42

your business . They may

24:44

not be a star in this area , and this is where

24:47

you've got to ask questions and you've got to find

24:49

resources or people to help you with

24:51

this type of thing . And so , whether you

24:53

know people call

24:55

up seed and want to use seed , or whether they've

24:58

got their own people , if you're having conversations

25:00

like this , you know you're on the right track

25:02

. If you're not having conversations

25:04

like this and you've

25:07

started to accumulate some assets , you

25:10

probably and you've got either children or

25:13

multiple beneficiaries and

25:15

charities and stuff like that then you

25:18

probably need to have a more sophisticated

25:20

conversation . The more different types of assets the businesses

25:22

and real estate and stuff the more this gets even

25:25

more challenging , because now

25:27

you're talking about different

25:30

types of ways

25:34

that you might designate beneficiaries

25:36

and sometimes even where you might use a trust

25:38

. In reality , you know where you might need

25:40

trust to actually come into

25:43

the picture .

25:44

Well , and you had kind of talked about this , and I just

25:46

want to challenge people to be leery of professionals

25:49

that , when it comes to emotional conversations

25:51

, over deliver on something that you could never

25:54

actually quantify . It's

25:56

very easy for individuals to want

25:58

to make a sale or to make you feel good

26:00

and they'll say things like you know

26:02

, I always take care of people , I deliver

26:04

checks , I hold their hand , I take

26:06

care of the family when they're no longer here . But

26:08

there's no way for you as an individual that sounds

26:10

good in the moment , but once you pass , you're gone . There's

26:13

no way to come back and just validate

26:15

that they actually did what they were going to say . So

26:18

just be careful of just because somebody

26:20

says you know , I see people all

26:22

the way through , you know that you really understand

26:25

what that entails .

26:25

Yeah , and

26:28

how many people have they seen all the way through ? Like we have some

26:30

younger planners that haven't seen somebody all the way through

26:32

yet , but if somebody that they're working

26:34

with has to go all the way through , they're

26:37

going to . They have a lot of resources and

26:39

a lot of people on the bench because of how we work as a team

26:41

right . But if I'm hiring

26:44

a singular person

26:46

out there to basically take care of me , if

26:48

that's where the relationship belongs and they're like

26:50

I'm going to see this all the way through , it's like how many have you

26:52

actually seen all the way through ? What does that actually mean ? You

26:55

know what are the results . And if it's like , well , I show up on the doorstep

26:58

, you know the week after with the check . That's not what I'm talking

27:00

about . Right , that's

27:02

that , that's your vanity , that's you being

27:04

the hero . You know I'm

27:06

talking about , like you know , how

27:09

do we put the pieces back together ? What's

27:12

that look like ? So

27:14

what I want to talk about is where you actually get these complex

27:17

beneficiaries , because they have to be

27:19

drafted in a certain way . We

27:21

have worked with a lot of attorneys . We

27:23

actually learned how to do this from working

27:25

with a law firm that was drafting these

27:27

for us and they were the only local firm that

27:29

would draft them

27:32

for us and they're constantly

27:34

getting rejected by the financial companies and stuff

27:36

. So sometimes they go through , sometimes they went out . We never

27:38

knew why there was always different issues and stuff because we really

27:40

didn't understand the form , we didn't understand illegally within

27:42

the form and

27:45

we would have clients that worked with different law firms and we'd

27:47

go ask them for it and they either

27:49

I mean who knows which would get back

27:52

. You know from that would get really bizarre

27:54

stuff . We wouldn't get anything . They charge client extra

27:56

. We've

27:59

had attorneys that try to file the forms

28:01

for the clients . So you have an attorney that

28:03

you know $350 , $400 now

28:05

are trying to file these forms for you that

28:07

are getting rejected . That's awfully expensive

28:09

and the reason why they're getting rejected

28:12

is because they don't work with that company . Very often

28:14

they don't know how the company wants to receive the form . So

28:18

there are few

28:20

attorneys that actually draft these

28:22

forms proactive . We've

28:25

only run across one firm that does it proactively

28:28

and

28:30

then even then , what we've done actually

28:32

at SEED is we actually created

28:34

our own complex

28:37

beneficiary structure in

28:39

coordination with certain financial companies

28:42

, because the

28:44

attorneys were creating very nice legally

28:47

pieces , and what was happening was

28:49

it was projecting things

28:52

into the beneficiary designation

28:54

. There's nothing to do with the actual

28:56

process of transferring assets

28:58

from one person

29:00

to another . And so the financial

29:02

companies were saying we're not taking on that liability

29:05

, it's not up to us to do that . Like they were saying , hey , I'm

29:07

going to give it to the trustee for the trustee to act

29:09

as the trustee should act . Well

29:11

, the financial companies saying don't tell

29:14

us . You know we can't tell the trustee how

29:16

to act . We don't like that's not our responsibility

29:18

. Our responsibility is to get it from point A to point B . You

29:21

know we're not necessarily concerned what they're doing with it

29:23

once they get it . And if you say that we are

29:25

in this beneficiary designation , then

29:27

that's implying that we have some kind of liability . And

29:30

so we actually had to take it a step

29:32

further and develop

29:34

these in-house . And

29:37

I'm certain because there are very

29:39

, very , very good firms out there , I'm certain that there's

29:41

other firms that you

29:44

know do this . I

29:46

know that this is not completely unique to us and

29:49

there are other law firms that do this , but

29:52

the point there is , it is a

29:54

level of sophistication , and one of the

29:56

other challenges that you'll have is I've

30:01

seen , attorney , when we get the templates

30:03

from the attorneys , they're the same for

30:05

every account or sometimes

30:07

they're just slightly different . And sometimes we have to go in there and

30:09

say , well , you know , we want to leave X amount of money

30:11

to somebody and we have to build out more , if than that

30:13

Contingencies because they're they're not actually

30:16

matching up with the will or anything , sometimes

30:18

anything that the , the decline even

30:20

said to the attorney , and so we've seen

30:22

the clients that take the , the templates an

30:24

attorney gives I'm and just start sending them

30:26

in . Here you go , everybody , and it's like whoa , wait a second

30:29

. That will was the catch all

30:31

remember , it was the default . We

30:33

don't actually want to do anything . The will says we , we

30:36

want to use the contingencies built in it Just in

30:38

case , and then this is the stuff that we're gonna do

30:40

. So we have to be really careful

30:42

that we're working with people

30:44

who have some experience in this or

30:47

that can get you to people who can kind of round

30:49

out the service needs with this

30:51

. So I'm pretty confident that if , if

30:54

you went to , for instance , one of the law firms that

30:56

we work with and you said to them I'm trying

30:58

to do this and I really need a good partner with us . Somebody

31:00

understands what you're doing . They're gonna be able to tell you . Well , here's

31:02

firms that understand how to

31:04

handle this . And the

31:07

bigger issue , I think , is on the financial world

31:09

, because everybody thinks of financial advisors a financial

31:11

advisor , and one firms as good as the other . They're

31:13

not , and we've talked about this years

31:16

ago . Maybe we should revisit it someday . But how

31:20

the firm is designed and the

31:23

, the , how the

31:25

employee or the represent the financial

31:27

planner , that or advisor that you think you're working with

31:29

, how they're registered with the firm and what

31:32

the firm's compliance regimen is will

31:34

strongly dictate if they . Number

31:37

one , if they have any clue in this

31:39

stuff , but number two , if they're even allowed

31:41

to practice in this area . Because

31:43

the idea of of

31:46

this Sounds like a legal issue

31:48

, and so what they're gonna say is I'm

31:50

not an attorney , you have to go to an attorney for that . It

31:53

is not a legal , you

31:55

do not , it's not lea , it's not

31:57

a . You

32:01

don't have , you're not practicing law by

32:04

listing beneficiaries . Now

32:08

, we learned how to list it the way that we list

32:10

it through attorneys . They taught us how to do it

32:12

, but the

32:15

, the act of referencing

32:17

a will . That is not a legal

32:19

action . But

32:21

since you're doing stuff like that , what happens

32:23

with a lot of firms that are like we're not gonna touch that because there's

32:26

liability there if you screw that up ? You

32:30

know , I mean , we might be liable , and

32:33

the way that most firms work . In

32:35

order to do that there have to be really structured training . We really , if anybody's

32:37

going to do that , we're

32:40

gonna make sure that they're trained and they know how to do it

32:42

, and somebody's looking at every single one and that kind of thing and

32:44

they don't have the compliance regime for that . So

32:46

what happens is is that we've got we're

32:49

using liability , legal liability

32:51

, as a shield , but

32:53

really it's . We're not providing any training

32:55

and we don't . We

32:57

don't trust that somebody's not going to screw up and come back

32:59

and sue us and we can't

33:02

figure out how to make money on it . You know

33:04

, because a complex beneficiary designation

33:06

to draft one even off of

33:08

a template can take an hour for

33:10

an account , depending on how complicated

33:13

it is , and they're sitting there going okay . Well , if I had to do five of

33:15

this for somebody , you know it doesn't . Once

33:17

you get one done , normally it's a little bit quicker , but

33:20

if you have different things going on with different

33:22

accounts , it can take longer . It's

33:25

a lot of busy work , it's a lot of it's a lot of time I got to spend on

33:28

this stuff and how do I make a commission on a beneficiary

33:30

form , you

33:34

know . So it's just . It's kind of like it is we're

33:36

unfairly Explaining

33:41

an issue to people and Steve , and in this , in this particular series

33:43

, we're saying look , this is something that you need

33:45

to take really serious and this is something that this

33:48

is what a state planning

33:50

should sound like , right , but

33:55

it's the solution is hard to get , because this

33:57

is where the rubber meets the road . You

34:00

want to know the difference between financial advisors and financial

34:02

planners and agents and fee

34:05

only versus fee base versus commissions

34:07

. It's

34:11

competencies like this , like you

34:13

can be a CFP and still have no , no , no capabilities of doing this Right

34:15

. You can . You can have that . It's a specialty

34:18

level of knowledge and I just

34:20

think when you're out there in your shopping for financial planner

34:22

, you're working

34:24

with somebody and you're accumulating stuff . Understanding how to

34:26

handle your stuff is really important . Well

34:29

, we made it through complex beneficiaries . There's two layers to Travis

34:31

and I , as the host of this show .

34:35

We want to make ourselves available to you if you should have questions

34:37

. So the first layer if you got any

34:39

questions at all , you can head to ditch the suits calm there's

34:42

a contact us but and reach out to us , pose your question

34:44

, let us know . But

34:46

if you want something more I know Travis has mentioned a few times

34:48

, but if you're brand new to ditch the suits seed

34:50

, we do also offer a few different options

34:52

. We do offer a fee only financial

34:54

planning firm . We've been very fortunate over the years to have listeners

34:57

of the show reach out to us because they

34:59

need help in regards to planning . So

35:03

, yes , if you have somebody go use , go use them . But

35:09

if , at the end of the day , you just want to know how our team can help , you can head

35:11

over to seed PG calm . That's a PG calm . Obviously we're passionate about this . We

35:13

want you to get the most of your money in life . Don't

35:16

overlook this area of planning . It

35:18

can be complex , but it's a good idea to have a good team . Don't overlook

35:20

this area of planning . It can be complex

35:22

. There can be some people that you can go to . Just

35:25

make sure you know what you're getting , what you're getting into

35:27

. But a simple step , even from that first episode Go

35:30

, make sure that you have beneficiaries on file and

35:32

that they're exactly what they want you to be . But

35:34

again , we hope this episode helped you . Thanks

35:37

you for stopping by digital suits and don't

35:39

don't miss our next episode .