Read The Transcript Below:

Steven  (00:51):

Hello everyone, and welcome to the next episode of the Retirement Tax Services podcast, Financial Professionals edition. I’m your host, Steven Jarvis, CPA, and this week as we continue the new year, really excited to go through a topic that I get a lot of questions on that really surrounds this idea of information overload, specifically around all of the different service and software options that are constantly popping up in our industry. Some of those are tax specific, some of those cover all of the other areas of your practice. But here with me this week to help me sort through this topic is Ryan Metzler, the co-founder of Finlocity. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan (01:27):

Thanks, Steven. It’s great to be here. I appreciate it.

Steven  (01:30):

Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your background and expertise. Before we dive into maybe some more specific examples of how people can wade through this sea of options, just give a little bit of background on who you are and what Finlocity is.

Ryan (01:43):

Sure, sure. So I’ve been in the event solution provider space for about 15 years and what that means, I’ve been working with decision makers from Fortune 1000 companies mostly and identifying where they need help with their business and matching them with those solution providers. And since 2017 we founded, I co-founded Finlocity with my partner Alan, John Caterino and Oleg Kovich, and the focus for that was on connecting registered investment advisors, broker dealer executives, family offices, bank and trust officers, insurance professionals, asset managers and technology executives, and kind of putting them in a position where they can hash out all the different solutions that are in the marketplace. Because like you said, there’s always new offerings and it’s really tough to navigate if you’re on your own or even with your day-to-day activities. So we host online forums and in-person events.

Steven  (02:55):

And that’s such a fascinating business model to me because I’m going to date myself a little bit here, but I would imagine most of our audience can relate to this. I distinctly remember when I first got to start asking J. Eves for information on the internet. At first it was this, Hey, the information’s there, decisions are going to become so easy. We have all the data. And then that novelty very quickly wore off and it almost felt like we were back in the same place of cool, I have more information now, but is it specific to me? Is it specific to my situation? Am I really understanding what it is I’m supposed to do? And so for the DIYers, the really hardcore, I’m going to dig through this myself, that works for some people, but for most of us, myself included, I want to talk to somebody, I want to interact with someone. And so that’s why I think it’s really cool that you’ve set up this ecosystem for helping people navigate big decisions.

Ryan (03:45):

Oh, well, thanks. Yeah, it’s really important. I mean, people really focus on their activity, their day-to-day activity, and they don’t get a chance to really look at operational solutions. It’s more usually products or services focused around their clients, especially if you’re an intermediary, which I really focus on. It’s customer service focus and how you run your business in terms of your efficiency, your cost basis, stuff like that. It is so important and the technology can really help you out. I used to run my events, I used to have 20 employees and we’re literally down to two of us running the day-to-day. So there’s some really great ways you can optimize your business to really make it work for you.

Steven  (04:35):

Ryan, let’s talk through this idea of how do we navigate all of the options available to us because just a few weeks ago I was at another financial advising conference and I literally was talking to software providers who had just launched the week before. And so the rate of new ideas is not slowing down. And so again, whether that’s tax specific or just broader for financial advisors, let’s just start with when I’m presented with so many options, especially on the technology side, where do I even start? How do I decide which way to go? Because the other problem in this, Ryan, is that it’s not like we have two options and one is good and one is terrible. And so we’re picking the good option. A lot of times we’re picking from a lot of different great options and just trying to figure out which one’s best for us.

Ryan (05:19):

And I hate to say this, it’s almost a backwards way of shopping, and one way I was taught was don’t buy something unless you really, really want it, right? Sure. And the way marketing is, especially in the financial services industry, it’s heavily focused on marketing. You’re constantly having new investment products, new technologies always put in front of you. There’s always a lot of new opportunities. You’re always hearing about a lot of solutions that are working for other people. And I think it’s really important to first understand that, that you’re always going to have information coming at you like this especially today, but to first evaluate your current practice, how are you managing your client relationships right now? Is there any places workflow automation that can help you with efficiency to give you more time to develop relationships? And to expand on that, is there things around compliance or risk management? And I think it’s really important that when things come at you like this to stop and say, what do I really need? What do I need help with right now? What’s important to me? And that kind of clears out a lot of stuff and hopefully allows you to work on things that really impact you the most.

Steven  (06:33):

It’s such an important reminder there, Ryan. It makes the kid and me coming out, but it reminds me of the movie up with the talking dogs and the one, they’re always just squirrel and they always look to the side trying to find the squirrel. And that’s what technology can feel like sometimes is what’s the newest shiniest object? And so such an important reminder literally within the last week had multiple advisors reach out to me asking which they should choose between specific tax planning softwares. And I asked the question slightly differently because tax specific, but still that same vein that you’re going down of my question back to them. It’s not a recommendation of absolutely you have to pick this software. It’s Hey, what’s your existing process for taxes in your practice? What is it you’re trying to accomplish for your clients? Because that’s really going to dictate the answer. There happens to be a lot of great tools out there around taxes, but your actual desired outcome for your clients, how you’re going to use it in practice is way more important than who has the shiniest picture.

Ryan (07:28):

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, and I know we were talking about this a little bit earlier today. I was in the CRM space, I was a CRM specialist, and my old boss, Danny Estrada, who’s a specialist expert in CRM, worked on a lot of integrations in the early two thousands. And he always said, when you get these software, just like there’s a lot of different software products out there, even the few software solutions that you might already know of may already have those offerings under the hood. And also one thing to look into before you buy anything else, see what you have already and how you can adjust those tools to make it work to your benefit. But one thing that he pointed out to me was you get these softwares and there are so many features and they’re so flexible now that normally out of the box people, they rush in and they just open up every feature and they give these features to all their employees and it just creates a lot of confusion because there’s just so many widgets.

(08:35):

And he was really successful because what he first would do is meet with each executive at the different levels and learn about their processes and then really cut the solution down so that it’s only around those processes. So people might not have access to other features unless they really needed it, but to just have those five features and that’s it, and just let them be experts in it proved will really work and allow the adoption to really succeed, I should say. So the big challenge for a lot of companies is the adoption and employee adoption, and they usually fail because of that reason. They’ll have just too many features and it’s just too much. So it’s good to start really small even with the new software that you get.

Steven  (09:23):

Yeah, that’s a great reminder. I’m just thinking about software platforms that my team uses, even though I’m not a financial advisor. I mean, you mentioned CRMs. I mean, there’s some of these things that we’re all going to be familiar with, at least in concept. And I’m constantly learning new things about software platforms I’m already on. And so I really like that recommendation in there that before you go out and buy the new software, take a minute to explore the software you already have, maybe even reach out to your software provider to say, Hey, is this something that you can help us do? Because there is a steep curve in time and cost and employee frustration of implementing a new system, especially if it’s one of your more integral systems. A lot of times the questions around tax software will come up directly involved with or adjacent to an advisor’s financial planning software.

(10:11):

And so again, that’s such a great recommendation that before you run out and get the shiniest new object check and see what your existing platform does, and maybe it doesn’t do all the things, but this is where it ties back into we’ve got to start with what is you’re trying to accomplish for your team, for your clients, for your practice, and then how do your existing tools help you do that or not? What’s the gap? And then what’s that very intentional plan for how you implement it? Because otherwise you’re going to get six months and six figures down the road and say, well, what was I even doing?

Ryan (10:43):

What was I doing? Where am I right now? And you’re absolutely right. It’s so good. And going back to that story where make sure you really know what you want before you buy it, and I think that it’ll clarify a lot of things. There’s just so much out there.

Commercial (10:59):

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Steven  (11:34):

Ryan. One of the things I look for when people are making recommendations on decisions is their ability to articulate why this might not make sense. And so you spend a lot of time, maybe matchmaking isn’t quite the right word, you’re putting a lot of people in the room to then try to explore where these overlaps of need and a deliverable are. So I mean, do you have standard recommendations you make to people of, Hey, you’ve got to hit on these three bullet points, you’ve got to make sure this isn’t there. How do you help people evaluate that?

Ryan (12:02):

Well, it boils down for us. We meet with each one of our attendees before our meeting to identify where their needs are for their business practice. So kind of the same process. So it’s everybody’s got different buying cycles. Their needs are at different times, they have different needs at different times. So one company might have a big need for document management and another one might want to improve client engagement and maybe client engagement on the financial planning side. So really it’s about identifying those areas first and then putting them with their peers that have similar interests or have had a lot of experience in those areas and kind of get them talking with one another.

Steven  (12:46):

So really, even though you’ve really created this marketplace of ideas for the people coming into that looking for solutions, this isn’t just a, Hey, come and shop for whatever you want. This is Walmart. Pick something off the shelf. You’re really trying to screen the people coming in to help them be as successful as possible.

Ryan (13:00):

Absolutely. Everybody’s time is extremely valuable, and you can’t take on everything by yourself. I mean, there’s procurement teams that are out there that actively manage and evaluate opportunities for companies all the time. And when you’re focused on serving your clients and your day-to-day, it’s really hard to branch off into something that’s kind of foreign like this, because especially in the financial services, you look at investment products and you look at people’s risk tolerance and it’s about your clients. So you’re really focused on that and the market, but operating your business might just fall on the side and you’re not alone. If that’s the case, that’s actually normal.

Steven  (13:45):

The other thing I wanted to hit on, Ryan, that you mentioned, you talked about getting people connected with peers, and this is another area where I really encourage advisors who are looking to implement a particular solution to go talk to people who’ve actually used this. And again, go beyond just, Hey, did it look nice? Was it fun? Let’s give me specific examples of how this was incorporated into your existing client processes. Give me examples of how you were delivering additional value or having different outcomes or reducing team time. Get specific. It’s not just how cool is the demo. I want to talk to people who have used it and can tell me here’s how it had an impact or made a change.

Ryan (14:26):

Absolutely. Each practice is a little different. I would say implementing the CRM has been probably one of the best things that I’ve seen in terms of improving people’s business. There’s a lot of examples because what it does is it gives you, when you implement software like that and you start recording and tracking your activity, not only are you building clients, but you’re working a process and you’re proving and validating a process, and that becomes equity and value for your business. So someday, let’s say you try to sell your business or your practice, it’s really good to have that model laid out for the buyer and kind have a package product, and it’s also good. So let’s say, God forbid something happens to you, you have a succession plan and whoever’s behind you can pick that up and take it to the next level. CB Richard Ellis was a big implementation that I assisted with. I did some work in the years past with ivani Technology Solutions and some of the work that they were doing with Xerox and really evaluating each one of those meetings. It all boiled down to what were they looking to accomplish, because there’s just so much, and like I said, you can open up one of these packages, one of these software solutions out of the box, and it’s got everything under the hood.

(15:51):

So it’s just overwhelming. As it relates to our practice, what we’re doing is we’re identifying opportunities for the sponsor, and we’re doing that by looking at the attendees interest points and then matching them up. And what I said earlier about the buying cycles, everybody’s got, it’s all about timing for a salesperson, it’s about timing. If somebody needs something or they don’t, and you could spend a lot of time out there whining and dining and trying to find the right opportunity for it to just not work out. So what we like to do is look at the marketplace and help our sponsors that way. Our technology companies identify those opportunities. So they’re really helping people with their challenges and not just selling products randomly to everybody too on the other side. For somebody that’s running operations, it’s really helpful for them because their day-to-day, they don’t have time to evaluate these things. And so they’ll always come to us and say, Hey, do you know a good company in this space? Or Do you know a good company over here? It’s really hard to go online and just search things out. And I know that sounds crazy. It’s just because there’s so much content.

(17:14):

It definitely is. It’s that information overload. I mean, it goes back to the old adage of, don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. You need to go in with a plan, or there’s always going to be, I promise you, you could get online every day of the next year and you could find a new shiny object every single day. And so if you don’t take the time to step back, and maybe those shiny objects are what prompts you to take that step back, but you’ve got to take that step back, say, what is that I’m actually trying to solve? Whether that’s for team efficiencies, for technology integrations, for client service delivery, whatever needs you’re trying to fill, make sure you understand that before you then go and decide which tool is going to help you do that. That way you have a clear goal in mind.

(17:55):

As software platforms come out, they’re offering more and more features, not fewer and fewer. And so you’re going to have these options to choose from. You’re going to need to know what that implementation plan is. Which ones are we going to start with? How do we build from there? And then you mentioned it, and I’ll reinforce it again, the more you can find other advisors who look like you, who have a similar practice to you to be able to talk to say, what went well? What didn’t go well? What did you learn along the way? What pitfalls can I avoid? Those are all the things that’s going to accelerate you from when you sign up to when you’re delivering value to clients from that tool.

(18:30):

Absolutely. I highly recommend networking with your peers, going to as many forums, conferences as you can as time permit mets. Don’t make it your life because you’ve got other activities and things you need to do that are probably more important. But definitely go to forums when you can or sign up for research financial advisory tool. There’s integration websites. You can go to G two. They’ve got some nice search engine that you can go on there and you can type in what your need is, and it will list out different opportunities or different options for you. In my opinion, the best is hearing what people are currently using and what success they’re having. And if they’re not having success, why? Because it, it could be user error.

Steven  (19:17):

I’m a huge fan of having those in-person conversations. I always recommend that when advisors attend a conference, whether it’s the RTS summit or any other conference that you come in with a question or a set of questions, you’re going to ask every attendee. And so for those advisors saying, Hey, which tax planning software should I implement? The next conference I go to, I’m going to ask every attendee, Hey, what are you using for tax planning? And then I’m going to have some follow-up questions to drill down a little bit. If I need to update my CRM, if I’m struggling with prospecting, if I am not sure how to incorporate estate planning, whatever that topic is, I haven’t found a better solution than showing up in person and being able to ask your peers those questions. So Ryan, on that topic, how do people learn more about Finlocity and what you’re up to?

Ryan (19:56):

We have a website, it’s Finlocity.com, and we have a couple of events in 2025 that we’re doing. One’s focused on C-level executives of independent broker dealers. And then we have another meeting that is exclusively for registered investment advisors and multifamily offices. And we’re going to be launching a third event this year, which is around bank trust officers. So folks that work around wealth management and serving their clients, helping them keep as much cash as they can. That’s the goal there. Check us out on our website. It’d be great. Awesome.

Steven  (20:36):

Yep. So if you’re looking for a conference to attend in addition to the RTS Summit, go check out the Finlocity.com and what Ryan and his team are up to. Ryan, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate your time and expertise.

Ryan (20:47):

Appreciate it, Steven. Thanks so much for having me.

Steven  (20:48):

Yeah, and to everyone listening, until next time, good luck out there. And remember to tip your server, not the IRS.